Dear Roy,

Your responses are both appreciated and enlightening – they explain why Belmont is in its current situation.  Dialogue is always the best way to make progress and often it can provide additional perspective.   

We would like to respond to your rebuttals and clarify the facts.  Please see your claims below and our responses.

Roy:    

Town Administrator Salary

Claim: Implies the Arlington Town Manager salary is only $150K.

Fact: FY23 Arlington Budget sets the salary at $233,897

FBB:   

The salary that you quoted – $233,897 – was the budget for the former Arlington Town Manager, Adam Chapdelaine, who decided to step down two months ago after working for Arlington for well over a decade Here.  The FY23 budget was prepared in February by Pooler, the then Deputy Town Manager/Finance Director, who oversees (appoints, trains, and evaluates) the Town’s Financial Departments, including the Assessor, Comptroller, and Treasurer/Collector as well as the Information Technology Department. Here  Pooler’s salary was $149,720 as clearly stated in the FBB email. Here   

You helped us prove our point that Garvin was comparing her salary with people in higher positions with years of stellar job performance.  Garvin’s new compensation package retroactive to 07/01/22 is $214,106.  Not that far from Arlington’s former Town Manager, Pooler’s boss.

Roy:    

Town Counsel

Claim: Belmont uses too much time from town counsel compared to Arlington

Fact: Belmont’s budget for legal services is far below Arlington’s

FBB:    

The point being made was NOT that Belmont overall is using more town counsel time vs Arlington. Of course, Arlington uses more because they are a more highly populated town. The point being made is that Garvin is using town counsel far more than Pooler because she lacks a legal background, a credential that he has. Garvin also misinterprets the town counsel’s advice from time to time.  Here’s an example of a recent SB meeting Here starts at the 14:00 minute-mark. The COA board asked if they could get some basic information about the new COA director hiring process, such as # of applicants being considered.  The town counsel advised of a by-law change that Garvin will be the sole decision-maker for choosing a COA director. However, he later indicated that whether Garvin consults with the department heads is left to anyone’s good judgment.  At 35:07 minute-mark, when COA board members ask for more transparency in the hiring process. Garvin claimed that if she does, she would be violating the law.   

Roy:    

Structural Change Impact Group

Claim: Implies some of the members are not town residents.

Fact: All of the members are residents.

FBB:   

Roy, you know very well all the SCIG member changes because you voted for them, hereP.3 under Action by Consent. This is an obvious case of intentional misleading.  As stated clearly in the FBB email that “one of the four starting SCIG resident members”, Patricia Groves, was solicited for the position, and she was NOT on the town resident list.  You don’t seem to get the key point that at least 2 of the 4 resident positions were solicited.  Ms. Groves resigned shortly after she found out Belmont residents have to apply for it and some well-qualified residents didn’t get in. We appreciate Ms. Groves’ honesty.

Roy:    

Roads

Claim: “The incumbent SB candidate even found money for road repair five days before the election.”

Fact: An independent review by the Town Accountant Office identified unencumbered funds that were available for the capital budget.  The Capital Budget Committee voted to use these funds for road repair.  I cited this work to show how actual budgeting gets done, as opposed to a tooth-fairy theory of government.

FBB: 

Roy, you wrote in your FB post five days before the electionthat WE identified an additional $250,000 to recommend for roads and sidewalks (see attachment 4 in FBB’s previous email).  Now you are saying: “an independent review by the Town Accountant Office identified….”  So which statement is true? The timing and you alone making the announcement seem to overstep the limit, and post on Facebook?  How inappropriate! The fact is we shouldn’t need to look for funds for road/sidewalk as we should have sufficient funds in the budget as well as supplemental funds from the 2015 PERMANENT override (the town has collected over $40M by now) that we were promised to use for that purpose. 

Roy:    

Select Board

Claim: “one of the SB members needs to step down.”

Fact: the voters made an overwhelming decision in April.  

FBB: 

The fact that you were elected does not mean you are above the law.  Remember two of Shirley’s SB members who were ousted because of their underhanded way of paying Garvin, Just Google how many elected officials were forced to step down for wrongdoings. 

We appreciate you raising these unfounded “Facts” that gave us a chance to further clarify in more detail.  However, you failed to mention some of the more serious issues covered in the FBB emails.  For example — Your explanation is needed for the extremely wasteful spending of the School Building Committee (BC).  You were also involved in the BC’s decision to eliminate work for West of Harris Field (WoH) but used the $2.37M budget to pay the contractor. Here at the bottom of p.4,  Not only you acknowledged the work was eliminated and BC kept the money instead of returning it to cover future WoH work.  You also asked the BC twice if they want to increase the School Project debt that had already reached the limit as you knew the Town Treasurer was going to borrow $12M, the remaining balance of the School Project.  When the $2.377,280 WoH budget (PCCO #38) was used to cover change orders for the month of June (see attachment 7 in the previous FBB email),  the motion passed unanimously.  Once again, all BC members knew and agreed with this practice. Here at the bottom of p.3.  

The BC chair should recuse himself to be part of the BC because of his business relationship with the contractor, architect, and OPM, let alone being the chair.  The OPM is doing a disservice to our town, with $16M worth of change orders (CO) that include many expensive mistakes made by the contractor(s), architect, and themselves.  BTW, the $16M is a net amount of all the work eliminated (i.e. WoH), so the actual amount is much higher.  Pick any of the change orders and ask the BC members what they just approved.  The question is why the town keeps hiring the same OPM for all the town’s recent building projects.  None of the plans were well thought out, there are major parking and locker room issues that are costly.  With parking shortage and abutter complaints, our town officials think it’s a good idea to build a library that’s 40% larger with only 41 parking spaces that the Underwood pool visitors use as well.  Then build a new rink next to the $295M School Project and within blocks of the new library.  What are they doing to our small town? 

WoH is prep work for the rink project.  Here’s what you said about the new rink project back in January 2021 — “the goal is a new town-owned and operated facility without new taxes.” It would be a miracle if Belmont is capable of doing that.  Only a few months ago, the ice rink budget was still capped at $20M.  it’s now around $45M and excluding the work for WoH.  It’s peculiar how quickly the SB voted to use CPA funds to pay for the entire WoH work without mentioning the taxpayers are already paying for it.  CPA is also funded by taxpayers.  Double Taxation is illegal as it violates the Federal Constitution. BTW, WoH is only an example, there are more items eliminated and the money kept by the BC. Your thoughts?

Sincerely,

Belmontians for Better Belmont