League Of Women Voters, Warrant Committee Holding Briefing On Town Meeting Segment A On Wednesday

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Photo: The Belmont League of Women Voters will co-host this virtual briefing

The Belmont League of Women Voters and the town’s Warrant Committee will co-host a virtual Warrant Briefing preceding the first night of the 2024 Town Meeting on Wednesday, April 24, at 7 p.m.

Here is the opportunity for Town Meeting members and residents to ask questions about articles in the non-budget warrant – known as Segment A – that will come before the annual Town Meeting starting on Monday, April 29. Town officials and department heads will be present to provide information.

Chair of the Warrant Committee Geoffrey Lubien will moderate the meeting.

Town Meeting Members and residents will have several viewing options to attend on Wednesday:

  • https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86137044412; Zoom meeting ID: 861 3704 4412
  • Live broadcast: Belmont Ch 8 (Comcast); Ch 28 (Verizon)
  • Livestream or on-demand at belmontmedia.org/watch/govtv

2023 Town Meeting; First Night, Segment A: CPA Articles Go 7 for 7 As Town Meeting Returns Live

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Photo: Mike Widmer, Belmont Town Moderator, opens the 2023 annual Town Meeting on May 1

It was a clean sweep for the seven Community Preservation Act projects as they were overwhelmingly accepted by members on the opening night of the annual Belmont Town Meeting held in person for the first time since November 2019.

“I’m delighted we’re back in person,” said Town Moderator Mike Widmer as he greeted the approximately 235 members to the Belmont High School Auditorium on Monday, May 1.

New and re-elected members being sworn in

Widmer acknowledged several members remained concerned about being indoors with the coronavirus remaining a health issue, which was one of the reasons Belmont trailed other communities returning to public meetings. With the help of the Board of Health, a special section in the auditorium’s balcony was set aside for those residents seeking a comfortable distance from their fellow members.

“Obviously, nothing is 100 percent perfect, but I’m confident that we’re making this step in a responsible way,” Widmer told the assembled body.

The night felt like a long-delayed family reunion, with members happily reintroducing themselves in the High School auditorium with hugs and pats on the back. Some expressed an almost nostalgic fondness for the battered original seats in the old High School “that poked you so you’d pay attention.”

The Boy Scouts from Troop 304 and Girl Scouts Troop 82109 presented the colors while Life Scout Karina Kinzinger led the meeting in the Pledge of Alliance. The Belmont High Chorus sang the national anthem, and Bishop Christopher Palmer of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provided the invocation.

The Meeting has seen a historical change in its demographics since that last in-person get-together three-and-a-half years ago, noted Widmer. Since 2019, 100 new Town Meeting members have been elected, nearly a third of the legislative body, with 25 elected in April. Those include an 18-year-old and a growing number of People of Color joining the Meeting’s ranks.

Thanks, Fred

Long-standing Town Meeting stalwart Fred Paulsen was honored with a proclamation from the Select Board. Paulsen served 62 years as a Member, starting in 1959 as a member of the School Committee, which is likely the longest tenure of any resident on the body.

Fred Paulsen

“I think I’m safe to say it’s gonna be a long time before that record is broken,” said Widmer.

“Fred, you were always very incredibly thoughtful and respectful,” said Mark Paolillo, Select Board chair. “You always did your homework and were very analytical about the points that you made. I think you convinced a lot of people including myself, to vote your way when I felt differently about it.”

“Sixty-two years has passed in a flash,” said Paulsen as he received a standing ovation from the body. “I enjoyed every Town Meeting and always hoped I made a positive impact, even those times where my comments and ideas were cast aside.”

As is keeping with tradition, long-serving Town Meeting members who are no longer representing their precincts were recognized, with Katherine Lind (39 years), Linda Oates (36), Henry Kazarian (29), and Brett Sorenson (27) leaving with more than a quarter of a century of service.

The first night was dedicated to Article 11, the seven Community Preservation Committee projects presented by its chair and recently elected Select Board member Elizabeth Dionne.

Elizabeth Dioone

“The good news is that after adding interest on funds, Belmont’s total CAC funds raised to date (since 2012) is $16,694,344,” Dionne told the meeting, with the annual CPA charge for each residential taxpayer at $245.

The fiscal ’24 projects – and their price tags – included:

  • Conservation Fund, $200,000
  • Support for the creation of new affordable housing, $250,000
  • Grove Street basketball/baseball reconstruction, $941,935
  • Library historic objects preservation plan, $86,787
  • PQ Park basketball replacement in kind, $124,592
  • Rejuvenation of Sherman Gardens, $400,000
  • Homer House third-floor window restoration installation, $31,500

To take a deep dive into each project, a link to the Community Preservation Committee’s page is here.

The Grove Street project – the reconstruction of the basketball court and renovation and seeding of the baseball fields – was the only presentation in which an amendment was submitted. Presenting for a fellow Precinct 4 resident, Kate Bowen requested the article carve out the baseball field appropriation and leave $290,370 to replace the court.

Beyond the purview

While saying she values the three areas that the CPC funding targets – affordable housing, historic preservation, and open spaces that include recreation projects – Bowen said the amendment enables “Town Meeting to consider the proposal in greater detail than we would be allowed without the amendment.”

“Over these years, there is a growing concern that we are overbuilding for basic needs and basic maintenance oversights,” said Bowen. She pointed out the project is two proposals, one urgently needing repair while the baseball diamonds were deemed a want rather than a need.

Coming up to the mic

Yet the CPC Committee said the amendment went beyond the purview of Town Meeting. Dionne noted earlier that while the legislative body can reduce the amount of funding or reject the project, “the stated rational for the amendment to eliminate reconstruction of the baseball fields changes the project as recommended by the CPC.” If the amendment had passed, the reduced funding amount would be insufficient to construct the CPC-approved project, both the Select Board and Committee would then exercise their prerogative to table the project.

But the meeting would have none of that as member after member spoke out to make the ball fields safe to play on.

“You’re right, we are supposed to be critical when things come before us,” said Kathleen “Fitzie” Cowing, Precinct 8. But Cowing said there had been ample opportunities to attend the months-long CPC vetting process and countless Recreation Commission meetings to debate separating the proposed work at Grove Street.

“Now is not the time for us to decide to pick it apart because we didn’t like how it panned out,” said Cowing.

Bowen’s amendment was pushed overboard, 10-224-3, and the project sailed through 219-3-0.

Each project was approved with little opposition, and the affordable housing appropriation passed by the “narrowest” margin of 215-13-1 with the PQ basketball court – all three public hoops courts are now under repair – being accepted unanimously, 221 yeas, zero nays.

Wendy Murphy (left) and Mark Paolillo

With the goal of finishing before 10:30 p.m., the final four presentations were presented under the “brevity is your friend” maxim. The last Article 11 project, the third-floor windows reconstruction at the Homer House, took Belmont Woman’s Club’s presenter Wendy Murphy a quick two minutes to present and then one minute for the meeting to approve.

Town Meeting returns for the final two nights on Wednesday, May 3, and Monday, May 8.

2022 Belmont Town Meeting, Second/Third Nights Of Segment A: A New Capital Budget Committee Approved

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Photo: Belmont Town Meeting approved the work of a special commission to change the Massachusetts state flag and seal (above) (credit: Commonwealth of Massachusetts)

The final two nights of Segment A of Belmont’s 2022 annual Town Meeting saw the creation of a new committee to oversee town and school capital projects, allow a group of dispatchers to retire under the plan they started with, and gave a thumbs up to updating the state flag.

The new Comprehensive Capital Budget Committee

Here was the opportunity for Town Meeting to merge the two existing committees overseeing the town’s capital process – the well established Capital Budget Committee and the two-year-old Long Term Capital Planning Committee – into an all encompassing oversight group of capital projects to be dubbed the Comprehensive Capital Budget Committee.

According to the article’s sponsor Chris Doyle, chair of the Long Term Capital Planning Committee, the new group will revise and expand the town’s capital budgeting and planning process. It will continue the work of the Capital Budget Committee which comes to Town Meeting with an annual appropriations list of projects or items requested by town departments – from fire trucks to roof repairs and everything in-between – with a new requirement to present to Town Meeting detailed one, five and 30 year plans that will evaluate major projects and financing options. The one year plan would be the annual appropriations which is voted on by Town Meeting while the five and 30 year plans will be recommendations by the CCPC provided to the annual meeting.

While there was no real opposition to the creation of the new committee – it has been under discussion and presented to the public for the past several months without much criticism – the article still came before Town Meeting with three amendments which Town Moderator Mike Widmer said was the most he’s seen at any one article in all his time as moderator. Two amendments were clearly ”housekeeping” alterations which were happily accepted by Doyle.

The third amendment from Bob McGaw, Precinct 1, sought to include language on how the three plans would be structured, by “endeavor[ing] to utilize generally accepted financial analysis tools and models in its evaluation and comparison of capital projects.” While the amendment’s suggestion on using “generally accepted” analysis models appeared to be innocuous enough, it could also be open to interpretation that troubled many as demonstrated by every board and committee reporting on it recommending “unfavorable action.”

While opponents to the McGaw amendment were OK with deep dives on the finances of capital projects – Ann Marie Mahoney, Precinct 1 and chair of the CBC, said what McGaw is seeking “is already happening” with her committee including analyzing purchasing vs. leasing and calculating life expectancy of renovation or reconstruction projects – they believed the phrasing was far too vague.

“This sentence is completely unworkable,” said Claus Becker, Precinct 5, as ”there is no list of ‘generally accepted financial analysis’ tool in the context of local governance.” Becker said if a resident doesn’t accept the work a committee or board has produced, it is their “civic duty” to do their own analysis and present it to the public for comment.

The McGaw amendment was set aside by Town Meeting and the article was approved by a wide margin, 244-8-3.

Retirement Classification of Certain Employees

Precinct 7’s Michael McNamara put it succinctly when he renamed the measure on the Retirement Classification of Certain Employees brought before Town Meeting as the “keeping them from being stiffed” article.

Tom Gibson, chair of the Belmont Retirement Board and the sponsor of the article, reported that the article came as a result of the latest three year audit by the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission – which regulates, oversee and guides the operation state’s public pension systems – which determined that Belmont’s dispatchers are misclassified in terms of their pension benefits. While they are placed in group 2 – which includes employees whose major duties are the care and custodial duties involving prisoners – the auditors said they should be group 1, which are for clerical, administrative, management and technical employees. That change would have an impact on the calculation of an employee’s retirement allowance which will eventual the final benefit.

Gibson said the PERAC-directed change would impact just eight Belmont employees and all future employees. Under the new group designation, the eight would be required to work more years to receive the amount they were expecting under the existing plan. The article would grandfather those under the existing Group 2 classification with all new employees be slotted into Group 1.

As both Gibson and Select Board Chair Mark Paolillo noted, voting yes on the article was to a measure of fairness for the eight dispatchers. While the majority of speakers supported the article, some who said they were fine with the measure were miffed that the Retirement or Select Board didn’t have an analysis of the ”added” cost of keeping the dispatchers in Group 2 available to members.

After a bit back and forth with members, Gibson revealed that there would be a $159,423 increase to keep the dispatchers where they are.

Fairness passes: 247-6-5

Changing the State Flag and Seal (non-binding)

This article was fairly self explanatory: Citizen petition sponsor Joseph Barnard, Precinct 3, hoped that the town would approve a resolution to support a special commission as it goes about the mission of changing the Massachusetts state flag and seal. Barnard said this is not a new issue, that indigenous people have been saying for generations that the flag and seal were ”offensive and harmful” and a yes vote ”is to uplift and amplify an indigenous led campaign for change.” Go here for more information.

Not much in terms of debate as nearly all speakers were enthusiastic in backing the measure, although one member did ask for the data that would support the contention that ”a large majority of native Americans find the current state flag offensive.” Barnard admitted he didn’t have a poll or survey to call on but said he believed the indigenous leaders who backed the commission would know what their constituents thinking on the matter. It passed 222-12-19.

Town Meeting Returns In June

Segment B of Town Meeting which articles involving the town and school budgets will be voted, will commence on Wednesday, June 1 at 6:30 a.m., likely via Zoom and on local cable access.

Previewing Segment A: First Part Of 2021 Annual Town Meeting Highlights A Change In Who Runs The Light Department

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Photo:

Traditionally the first half of Town Meeting – known as Segment A – is a multiple night affair with speechifying from long lines of Members on a menagerie of topics. Who could have thought in 2019 that increasing the Town Moderator’s term to three years would prompt an uproar, or citizen’s petitions on snow removal and yard sales could cause a ruckus and creating marijuana districts and the transfer of liquor licenses would stretch meetings past the 11 p.m. witching hour.

Fast forward to opening night at this year’s virtual event of the Annual Town Meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. on Monday, May 3 and the entire segment could be finished before Rancatore’s shuts its doors. With only two articles set for debate – one on May 3 and the other May 5 – the meeting could see the rare incident of where there are no more members in line to speak on a subject when the article/amendments are called.

First some facts about this week:

  • The Annual Town Meeting will be held May 3, 5, 10, 12 [Segment A] and we’ll take a pause and will return June 2, 7 and 9 for Segment B. All sessions begin at 7 p.m. There are 22 articles on the warrant, only 11 will be taken up in Segment A, the remainder will be taken in Segment B.
  • The Special Town Meeting will be held Wednesday, May 5 starting at 7:30 p.m. and is expected to conclude early, allowing the meeting to return to the business of the annual.

For the Monday, May 3 session of the Annual Town Meeting, the articles will be:

Many of the articles will be of the housekeeping kind or will be made moot – in the case of the citizen petitions articles 8 and 9 – leaving two which will be brought before the legislative body for a vote. With Article 8, it is the intention of the sponsor, Adriana Poole, to move to dismiss this article while the intention of the sponsor of Article 9, Alexander Corbett III, will move to dismiss this article.

ARTICLE 2: Municipal Light Board change in governance

This article will create a separate five-member Municipal Light Board. Currently, the Select Board members are also the Light Board.

Both the Select Board and the Light Board voted two for and one for the article. The aye votes – Roy Epstein and Mark Paolillo – point to nearly 80 percent of municipal utilities in Massachusetts have similar voter-approved entities with members who will have a background in or great interest to provide electrical power to the community rather than a Select Board who are, as they admit, not that well versed in the subject.

Adam Dash, the nay vote, said there are two issues that prevented him from coming on board with his colleagues. The first is the outstanding manner that the Light Department is performing, noting Boston Magazine named it “the greenest municipal light department.

“I think we’re doing really really well and I’m puzzled as to why we’re going to mess” interfering with our green energy initiative,” he said.

And as it will be elected, it will be independent to do as it pleases with its assets and policies without the interference from the other town boards and committees, said Dash.

“It’s going to cost the town money: in the future of the Belmont Light Building in Belmont Center, the post closure use the incinerator site, and PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) payments. I think a lot of that could just go away if there’s a separate Light Board. I’m concerned that the PILOT payment goes away and blows a $650,000 hole in our budget.”

Paolillo said he believes the Select Board will have the same relationship with this new board as it does with the School Committee and the Library Trustees, based on “a collaborative working relationship … and there’ll be accountability as it relates to the residents.”

The Select Board and the Light Board will report on this article.