u/aaronpik

[Disclosure: Town Meeting involved a lot of articles and I am tired, so this will be brief.]

We took up only a few matters tonight, but they were significant and we concluded all the business on the Annual Town Meeting warrant!

Appropriation of $500k for School Staff Contract "Ratification" Bonuses

There was a lot of discussion on this article, which sought to appropriate $500k from the undesignated fund ("free cash") for the purpose of funding one-time payments to school staff as part of the recently ratified contract agreement between the School Committee and the local teachers' union, the Belmont Educators Association (BEA). These one-time payments are really a compromise in lieu of raises that will end up costing Belmont less in the long-run since the one-time payments do not increase the base salaries that would then proceed to increase each year. This passed easily after an extended debate.

Appropriation of $25k for Town Staff Contract "Ratification" Bonuses

Basically the same as above but for a different union contract with the town government. A question was asked about the order of operations, suggesting that we should appropriate the money before agreeing to the contract. The Town Administrator pointed out that this would make it difficult to negotiate. This passed by an even larger margin.

Town Budget

All the motions within the article for town and school budgets passed with near-unanimous votes of support. The Warrant Committee presentation was excellent and informative, as was the presentation for the school budget report. There was discussion under a number of motions, often relating to a specific line-item within the relevant portion of the budget, but nobody really got up to debate whether we should change something.

I'll note that the time to change what's in the budget is really prior to Town Meeting. The town organizes a series of fiscal/budget summits throughout the budget cycle (Sept - March), convening the policy-making committees in town (Warrant Committee, School Committee, Select Board, and the Comprehensive Capital Budget Committee, on which I serve, and the Multi-Year Budget Advisory Committee) to discuss projections for revenue and expenditures, priorities, use of reserves like Free Cash & stabilization funds, and strategy and timing for override and debt exclusion questions.

Last night we spent a long time on a couple issues that share some similarities.

Belmont Community Path
First we took up an article to appropriate funds to support the right-of-way acquisitions necessary for Phase 1 of the Belmont Community Path. This phase of the path is fully designed and ready to go out to bid as soon as the Town secures the temporary and permanent easements on the land needed to complete the construction.

The appraisal process for the easements has been very slow and, alas, appraised the values higher than anticipated, including a much higher appraisal than anticipated for one property. The combination of this slowness and higher appraisals led to a very-last-minute and dramatic increase in the amount Town Meeting was asked to appropriate for the easements, going from $200k to $1.3m about 90 minutes before last night's session of Town Meeting.

A long discussion ensued, but when the votes were finally taken, about 88% of Town Meeting Members supported the appropriation, easily meeting the required 2/3 majority.

Private Sewer System
The only other orders of business we got through last night both focused on a private sewer operating on Belmont Hill. Established as a public-private partnership around the turn of the millennium, the private sewer was established to help provide options for property owners on Belmont Hill who had septic systems and wanted to move to a sewer connection instead.

The private sewer owner charges property owners a one-time licensing fee to connect and then seems to also contract for any work necessary to physically make connection. They do not charge any ongoing subscription fees once the connection has been made. Town Counsel provided a rough estimate of "around $50k" that the sewer owner charges for the licensing fee. This is essentially a sanctioned local monopoly in which property owners who need to replace aging septic systems must choose between replacement with new ones that meet heightened and very expensive requirements (due to special considerations for water flow off the hill) or paying to connect into this private sewer.

Town Meeting Members asked many questions as this was a complicated issue and the matter is a subject of current, ongoing litigation, so nobody was willing to provide detail on certain aspects that relate to that litigation. A legal representative was allowed to make a brief presentation in which he mostly described the reliability of the current system, including quoting the late (and beloved) Town Engineer Glenn Clancy, which was perhaps less well-received than he hoped as Mr. Clancy was, of course, unable to explain the remarks that were quoted. After a motion to terminate debate, this legal representative stood and began complaining about fairness and was asked by the moderator to stop several times before relenting. I noticed a member of the Belmont police positioning himself closer by in case the Moderator had to ask the man to leave.

Ultimately, Town Meeting Members voted overwhelmingly in favor of both articles relating to this sewer (one to give the town permission to pursue eminent domain and another to appropriate $60k for that effort).

Tuesday 5/19 outside the library Belmont Wheelworks mechanics will provide free comprehensive bike safety checks and basic repair. Bring your bike down between 4 and 6 for some help getting it ready for those lovely Spring rides (when more spring-like temperatures return)!

I've been working with the kind folks at the Belmont Public Library on a handful of bike-related events. These are our first round and are all scheduled in may:

• This Saturday May 2 at 9:30am --> Get there By Bike: How to Commute class
• Next Saturday May 9 at 9am --> Get there By Bike: Group Ride (practice commute, 18+)
• Tuesday May 19th, 4pm-6:30pm --> Wheelworks mechanics will provide free bike repair clinic (comprehensive safety checks and basic repairs)
• Bonus: Tuesday May 26th at 6:30pm --> eBikes 101 with Kara Oberg, a class for parents and teens thinking about eBikes.

For more information and registration, please visit belmontpubliclibrary.net/events