Breaking: Caputo Will Not Run For Re-election To Select Board

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Photo: Tom Caputo

Citing time away from his family and work demands, first term member Tom Caputo will not seek re-election to the Belmont Select Board.

“I am making this decision to not seek reelection so that I can prioritize my family and my full-time work,” he said.

Caputo’s announcement, made Friday, Jan. 22, comes with less than a month remaining for residents to submit nomination papers to the Town Clerk’s Office by the deadline, Feb. 16 at 5 p.m.

Caputo has worked with current members Adam Dash and Roy Epstein for approximately two years serving as the steady moderating element of an efficient team, relying on his business acumen and good nature to find compromise in tackling issues before the town. He also chaired the Financial Task Force II whose recommendation for a $6.4 million override was accepted unanimously by the Select Board earlier on Friday.

Caputo won his seat on the board with 94 percent of vote in 2018. The year previously, he won a full-term on the school committee topping the ballot with 51 percent of the vote. Caputo served as chair of the board in 2019-2020.

Caputo entered elected office when he joined the school committee in November 2014 as an appointed member to fill the interim vacancy left by the resignation of Kevin Cunningham. He won the election to serve the two years remaining on Cunningham’s term in 2015 with 99.3 percent of the vote.

“It has been a privilege to serve the Belmont community as a member of the Select Board for the last three years, but I have decided that I will not seek reelection in April.”

Below is Caputo’s press release:

“The time requirements of the Select Board role in the last year have become increasingly demanding, and I anticipate that pace will continue for the foreseeable future. I am making this decision to not seek reelection so that I can prioritize my family and my full-time work.”

“This was not an easy decision. I have always been committed to community service, and it has been rewarding to work with our deeply committed Town and School staff and volunteers. We have accomplished a lot together – building a new school and renovating the police station and DPW facility; rezoning the McLean parcel for development and affordable housing; advancing the community path design; financial modeling and planning for the town’s future; and much more. It is challenging work filled with purpose, and I will miss it.”

“I particularly want to thank everyone I have met along the way. It has been an honor to get to know you and serve as a member of your Select Board.”

“I hope that I can continue to play a role in the town in the days and months ahead. But for now, I look forward to maximizing the time with my family before my teenage daughters head off to college.”

UPDATE: Town Election ’18: Caputo In, Williams Out for Selectmen; A Race For Health Board [VIDEO]

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Photo: Tom Caputo delivers his nomination papers to Town Clerk Ellen Cushman.

There will be a new face on the Belmont Board of Selectmen. The question now is will there be a race for the open seat?

So far the facts are that one-term selectman and current chair Jim Williams said he will not submit papers to retain his seat for a second three-year term. 

“I’m not running. I’m certain about that,” said the Glenn Road resident this week.

As Williams exits town government, Tom Caputo made it official submitting nomination papers to Town Clerk Ellen Cushman on Friday, Feb. 2, accompanied by his campaign manager Ellen Schreiber. 

“I believe Belmont as a town have some very important decisions to make in the next three years, and they will impact our community for the next 30 years,” said Caputo. 

See the accompanying video to hear more from Caputo on why he’s running and issues before the board.

The Richmond Road resident is currently serving his first full three-year seat on the School Committee after being appointed to the committee on Nov. 2014 to replace Kevin Cunningham who resigned. At the town election in April 2015, Caputo ran uncontested for the two-years remaining in Cunningham’s term. In April 2017, Caputo was elected to a full three-year appointment with 3,014 votes running with Kate Bowen to fill two slots.

With nomination papers due to the Town Clerk’s Office in less than 10 days on Feb. 13 at 5 p.m., a challenger to Caputo will have about to week to secure the signatures of at least 50 registered voters.

Race for Health Board Now On

There will be a good race for the seat on the Belmont Board of Health as a Van Ness Road resident has returned nomination papers to take on long-time Board member Dr. David Alper who has submitted his papers. 

Stephen Fiore is an attorney in civil litigation with the Cambridge firm of Foster & Eldridge, LLP, who is a frequent lecturer on medical-legal issues and health care law. If the last name sounds familiar, Fiore’s wife is Lisa Fiore, the current chair of the Belmont School Committee, who is giving up her three-year seat to seek election for a single year, the remainder of Murat Bicer’s term. Bicer has resigned from the committee as he is moving away from Belmont.

Alper is a Podiatry specialist with an office in his Oak Street home. He is currently serving his tenth elected three-year term as a member of a three-person board the directs the seven-member Health Department staff and its $500,000 annual budget.

Editor’s note: The Health Board story has been revised due to Fiore’s submission of nomination papers to the Town Clerk on Monday, Feb. 5.

Town Election ’18: School Committee’s Caputo Eyes William’s Selectman Seat

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Photo: Tom Caputo

Nearly a year after securing his first full three-year term on the Belmont School Committee, Tom Caputo is thinking of a higher calling having taken out nomination papers for the Board of Selectmen.

In a conversation with the Belmontonian, Caputo appears ready to start a campaign to wrest away the seat from its incumbent, Jim Williams. 

In his “elevator pitch” for the position, Caputo points to many challenges facing the board in the near future and his skills to find solutions. 

“Simply put, the town has a bunch of critical decisions that we need to make in the coming years, questions about the new high school, major capital projects, traffic and those will all require thoughtful, creative solutions where lots of people with different backgrounds come together to create workable solutions,” he said.

“It all has to be done under which will continue to be a challenging fiscal environment. My time on the school committee, my experience on the [Belmont] High School Building Committee has given me both an understanding of a lot of those key issues and a passion to do more and be a part of trying to solve those problems.”

“I’m excited to continue to contribute to the town and its residents,” he said.

Both Williams and Caputo have yet to return their nomination papers to the Town Clerk’s Office. All town-wide office seekers and town meeting candidates have until Feb. 13 at 5 p.m. In September 2017, Williams said he would not run for re-election but did so including several caveats that would change his decision. 

Caputo was appointed to the School Committee in Nov. 2014 to replace Kevin Cunningham who resigned. At the town election in April 2015, Caputo ran uncontested for the two-years remaining in Cunningham’s term. In April 2017, he won a three-year appointment with 3,014 votes running with Kate Bowen to fill two slots.

For the past year, Caputo has been senior vice president for product at Cambridge-based CarGurus, a publicly-traded online car shopping website founded in 2006 by Langley Steinert, co-founder of TripAdvisor.

Caputo matriculated at Dartmouth then headed to Stanford where he earned an MBA and MS in electrical engineering. He started his career at Microsoft.

A decade-long resident, Caputo lives on Richmond Road with his wife, Sarah, and 11-year-old twin daughters.