September 30, 2022
By Edward A. Kazanjian
I recently read with dismay the Letter to the Editor from Roy Epstein and the response from Anne Paulsen re: the High School Project. Almost three and a half years since the ground-breaking, the project is still being designed! The entire project has been a fiasco. Massive cost cutting after bids came in high and yet the expensive solar trellis remained due to pressure from the “green lobby”. No traffic plan, no design of the “west campus”, a poor circulation plan, inadequate parking (wait ‘til the MS moves in), no plan for the tennis courts, overruns and errors and huge change orders as a result. I will even predict that more monies will be needed to complete the project.
All this should have been properly planned and designed before going out to bid. To do otherwise is to knowingly open yourself to expensive change orders. On that subject, has anyone reviewed these change orders? I recall hearing about filling in doorways…an architectural oversight…did their errors and omissions insurance pay for this or did Belmont’s taxpayers?
Now with the recent redesign of the traffic patterns on Concord Avenue (a concession to the “bikeway lobby”), we have lost parking spaces, put students’ lives in jeopardy, and created restriction on this main roadway for emergency vehicles. This is New England and there will be snow to be plowed this year…has that plan been developed?
The response to all this is to tell parents to drop off their children a significant distance away from the campus to reduce traffic and to educate them to “the dangers of unsafe parking”! Additional rationale given by Ms. Paulsen to not provide adequate parking, the “climate impact” of parking lots. Brilliant!
We have all read the Collins Report and must acknowledge the dire fiscal situation that exists. No one should even consider allowing any more capital projects or debt exclusions to be approved until and as such we have a full accounting on the High/Middle School Project and a plan in place to get back on a firm fiscal basis. We cannot allow any more poorly planned and incompletely planned projects to be approved just because “the kids need a rink” or “the Library needs a new home”. We are only weeks before the election and we do not yet know what the plans are for these projects. We do not have firm figures or bids in hand. The over-taxed (“10th most expensive place to own a home”) taxpayers of Belmont should not face another debt exclusion tax increase!
Belmont’s history of blowing opportunities is legendary…McLean development(s) and related costs, the Uplands should have been a taxpaying office tower was killed due delays of the green lobby, the incinerator site should have been sold to a developer and become a taxpaying over fifty-five development, Pleasant Street development a legendary tale, and so on. Instead, we did projects such as DPW, Police, Town Hall (a few times), Belmont Center, and a $1 million walking path at Grove Street, using “available funds and CPA monies”.
With apologies to my hockey friends, while I feel you need an ice rink, I must however state that not one additional penny should be put in the hands of our elected officials until we get our fiscal house in order. In the meanwhile, we continue to use the rink we have or rent ice time. There are rinks all around Belmont.
The Library should not be approved! They should, if necessary revert to COVID mode…books and materials made available to the citizenry but no action on any capital improvement or a new library until there is a fiscal plan in place.
The sins of the past have caught up to us and we must all step back and get back on track. Either we address minor changes in service now or suffer severe cuts and significant impact to our community.
When the Belmont Citizen Forum runs a pro-development piece and a piece which opens with “Belmont is effectively insolvent.” All should realize just how bad things really are. Every possible option must be opened and re-examined in an effort to generate new revenue. At the same time there should be actions put in place to address repeating the financial follies of the recent past.
Every time someone mentions a commercial tax rate, the response has been that “we don’t have a lot of commercial space” and “a consultant told us that it would drive out that which we have.” Or “the increase will just be passed on to tenants”. Watertown’s tax rates are $13.25 residential and $21.28 commercial. Newton’s $10.52 residential and $19.95 commercial. Has anyone seen the amount of commercial development in Watertown and Newton. Maybe they didn’t have the same consultant.
We can add to Belmont’s commercial space if we weren’t so parochial and the restrictive and the myriad of approvals could be streamlined. Address parking restrictions and height constraints. We could reclassify “non-owner-occupied residential property” as commercial space. Houses in my neighborhood owned by non-residents get to write off their taxes, repairs, insurance, and depreciate their property…why should those owners pay the same rate?
I mentioned CPA funds…another tax on our citizens put in place by a vote that passed by about 100 votes. How about putting it termination back on the ballot. All it would take is a simple majority to reduce your tax by 1-1/2%. These funds have been nothing but a slush fund for out Selectmen’s pet projects and mostly address deferred maintenance.
I have been in Belmont since before the former Belmont savings had checking accounts and when we were the last town to get cable. I remember when we were to get liquor licenses and the arguments against. Indeed, when we did get licenses that process was screwed up by our Town officials which drove out two viable businesses. The rest of the world has moved on and unless we get our house in order soon, “the Town of Homes” could soon be no more!
Join me and vote NO! Send the message that fiscal responsibility and solvency must come first and without further burdening our over-taxed citizens.