The Belmont Planning Board last night continued what’s become an ongoing charade, a travesty of due process, in its first “public meeting” on the Belmont Center zoning process. Last evening’s meeting attempted to put lipstick on a pig, the residents’-rights-violating Leonard Street zoning project, but we could still see and hear the pig. 

VIOLATION 1: the meeting was never called to order. Only 1 member of the Planning Board spoke up and participated actively. Maybe Taylor Yates IS the Planning Board now? Where were the other Board members’ voices?

VIOLATION 2: A Quorum of the Select Board was present and participating, with no prior announcement, an open law violation. Not only were their members present and participating, but Matt Taylor gave a long political speech, putting pressure on Town members to accept the Planning Board’s process, and Elizabeth Dionne did the same. Ms. Dionne even opened and closed this alleged Planning Board meeting! So: was it a Select Board Meeting or a Planning Board meeting?

SUBSTANTIVE VIOLATION 3: Despite repeated requests from the public in SEVEN EARLIER Planning Board meetings addressing Belmont Center, (a “design workshop”, 4 “focus groups” and 2 regular Planning Board meetings ) there WAS NO CLEAR INFORMATION ON – or regard for – TRAFFIC, REAL IMPACTS ON ABUTTERS, or FISCAL IMPACTS TO THE TOWN.

We, the public, are sick of vague generalities instead of real information.

We are upset to see our Town’s planning process hijacked by a tiny cabal of Select and Planning Board officials – Elizabeth Dionne, Taylor Yates, Matt Taylor, Chris Ryan – who run things dictatorially and ignore long-standing fair process laws.

And we question their real and actual conflicts of interest, and ask: who stands to gain financially from selling real estate in Belmont Center to developers and clients? Is that why they are rushing to build up in Belmont Center so fast instead of in perhaps less desirable – to residential buyers – areas of town ripe for commercial development such as on Brighton Street, which could be just as effective, or MORE effective generators of revenue Belmont so sorely needs?

Belmont residents deserve better. Our lives and homes depend upon it.

— A group of concerned Belmont citizens