Did you hear the story about the Belmont kid born at 2.5lbs who spent the first few weeks of his life in a shoebox? The kid who worked 10-hour days on Belmont farms in 7^th grade to help earn money for his family. The Pond skater nicknamed after a fish? The Korean war vet and Lifelong Belmontian?

What if I said the legendary hockey player who played for Polly Harris and Frank Bennett and went on to commit his life to Belmont both as a treasured employee and historic hockey player and coach. The man for whom the Town of Belmont honored his service to Town and Community by naming the local hockey rink after him. 

That man is the living legend “Skip” Viglirolo. His story is available as part of the Belmont Story Project online. Skip’s story is part of Belmont’s history, and part of the contribution Italian immigrants played in the development and success of Belmont. 

Soon the Town of Belmont will be opening a brand-new rink to replace the original 1971 rink. TownieTalk was surprised to learn that the Select Board hasn’t committed to keeping Skip’s name on the rink. I don’t understand this but then again, I didn’t understand the hesitancy of naming the Wellington gym under the also legendary Dick Samaria. Town history is what binds generations of current and former Belmontians together. You meet someone who grew up in Town and you ask what School they attended or what neighborhood they lived in and was that near the Underwood or Cushing Sq or Palfrey Sq etc. Erasing history erases bonds. 

The Town has just experienced a generational shift in leadership. The millennials are now in charge and while I apologize that we (I blame the Boomers but there were some Gen X in that mix) left you with outsized debt and difficult choices ahead, I would ask you to take the time to embrace the Town’s proud immigrant history and preserve it for former, current, and future generations to share not erase it. 

Cheers,

PJ Looney Jr

TownieTalk02478

“Never Forget” “Never Again” “AMDG”

Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong is a surgeon who made billions inventing cancer drugs. He says that Covid, and the vaccines that didn’t stop it, are likely causing a global epidemic of terrifyingly aggressive cancers.

“We’ve never seen an 8 year old with colon cancer before… this is a real phenomenon: a rise of cancer in young people”

Watch the March 26, 2025 interview by Tucker Carlson below!

The plan cover photograph is cheerfully optimistic. What doesn’t it show you?

It doesn’t show you the facts: eg that 200 people would be cramming a narrow street from the 100 new apartments being planned for the Center.

It doesn’t show you the lack of parking and back-to-back traffic along Leonard St. at ALL times, whereas now it’s just in rush hour(s).

It doesn’t show you rats running across Leonard street, which would turn into a huge construction zone for at least 5-10 years.

It doesn’t show you the DOZEN empty storefronts, not just a handful, along Leonard, because our well loved local stores will have gone out of business, or left : the business owners have said clearly that they will be forced out if this plan is approved. 

No Toy Shop of Belmont. No Bessie Blue. No Ranc’s. No Belmont Bookstore. No Helena’s. No Revolve. No Wellington’s. No Chocolate Dream. No Westcott Mercantile. ETC.

And because the cover of the plan speaks of “overlay zoning districts”, PLURAL, and because the Planning Board and Town Planner haven’t done their due diligence and conducted impact studies, the reality for not just the Center but for you could be this:

THE REALITY: 

NOT this: THE DELUSION

This is why it’s ESSENTIAL to vote on April 1 in our local elections!  Your future in this town, your home, your neighborhood, depends on it. 

Paul Joy, Chairman of the Economic Development Committee, has a different vision for change, economic development and responsible, careful planning.

Paul’s key focuses are :

1. Parking: Eliminate business parking mandates: help businesses flourish. Pledge to maintain the Claflin St. parking lot permanently. (According to the Planning Board it has been saved, for now)

2. Upzone only areas ripe for COMMERCIAL development eg Purecoat, some areas of Concord Ave..

3. Streamline new business applications, and refresh vacant storefronts using state money via grants 

4. Hospitality on Concord Ave, where it will enhance, not outcompete, local independent businesses 

5. Yes to drive through’s! A restaurant and rooftop bar over the Bank of America building ? 

What’s so different about this plan? It has NONE of the negative downstream impacts we will suffer from Taylor Yates’ plan. And Paul listens: to every stakeholder, every resident. He is not dismissive or callous, unlike his opponent, to shop owner’s and abutter’s concerns. He is thoughtful, responsible, inclusive, a good steward – and he tells the truth.

Shape YOUR future in Belmont! Exercise your vote!

——————

Belmont Deserves Better. Our lives, homes and businesses are on the line.

– A Group of Concerned Belmont Citizens

Instead, the actual zoning bylaw posted by the town is a shocking invitation to real estate developers to a free-for-all in Belmont Center:

1. No building footprint limits are established! Even 3A zoning did that!

2. Highest impacts on allowed buildings are hidden.

3. Maximum Heights enlarged with “bonus stories”.

4. Further height buildups of towers/roof structures are allowed in the small print. 

5. Deceptively calls full stories “half stories”… .

6. Packed with problematic images – see below – which don’t accurately represent what can be built.

If you really want to know what they’re doing, spend 20 mins on Town Meeting Member Doug Koplow’s careful review and superb analysis, from which this material is borrowed, a document publicly available here:

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AjsbE6z69oxHhcJabJVbQ2t223IwtQ?e=JwHJ7E

The Belmont Planning Board Chair has been pushing this Center overlay zoning project forward at breakneck speed. So is Elizabeth Dionne, chair of the select Board, who is effectively running Taylor Yates’ campaign for the open Select Board seat, election on April 1. 

Together, they insist this project will grow the town’s commercial tax base – while simultaneously ignoring and REFUSING TO ANSWER all requests for crucial data on COSTS, such as proportion of residential to commercial, actual numbers of tax revenue to be generated AFTER costs, infrastructure costs, traffic and parking impacts, and costs to schools of 200 more children living in 100 new apartments, and being driven in at least 100 new cars into the Center every day?

The Planning Board Chair and Select Board Chair are highly intelligent people. They know what good planning is, with due diligence. They know that once in a generation change can cause huge negative downstream impacts. They know they are pushing a massive buildup that will have little ground floor commercial space, topped with tons of residential – hundreds of new condos and apartments.

The deceptions in this zoning bylaw, in Taylor’s statements to the public which are the opposite of what’s in the actual zoning are the mark of a Planning Board Chair in a tearing hurry. His mantra seems to be “get it done – and damn the consequences!”.

Consequences we in this town who care about the Center will live with – forever. 

———

Belmont Deserves Better. Our lives, homes and businesses are on the line.

The Select Board and Planning Board, working hand-in-glove, have promised us that “economic development” via a massive buildup in Belmont Center will gain revenue for the town, and substantially lower our taxes. “Higher taxes or taller buildings!” is their mantra. But do the facts bear them out?

What is missing, or being hidden, in their plan? HERE ARE THE FACTS: 

1. MOST OF THE BUILDUP WILL BE RESIDENTIAL, NOT COMMERCIAL. 

The Town’s own RKG Fiscal Impact Analysis of November 2024, publicly available online, shows that the costs of school aged children, infrastructure, and new municipal services will at best – in an optimistic scenario – roughly break even in taxes. But UNDER THIS PLAN, YOUR TAXES COULD GO UP, NOT DOWN! 

These RKG tables show why: look at the result – $839,000 net revenue gain – of a moderate buildup in all of Belmont, and the LOSS from a low buildup: $29,000! 

2. While the Planning Board is trying to pack tall buildings into our small center, the construction, noise, rats, traffic clogs, disruption and higher rents will, according to the Belmont Center Business Association, DRIVE BELMONT CENTER INDEPENDENT STORES AND RESTAURANTS OUT OF BUSINESS. 

3. TRAFFIC: 100 new apartments/condos in Belmont Center – the PB’s stated estimate – will add at least 100 new cars (despite the Planning Board’s wishful thinking that folks will just walk long distances – they won’t, any more than the PB Chair does). Massive construction will clog traffic further. Which means your daily commute of 1/2 hr now will become at least 1 hour, under this plan.

4. “MONSTROUS BUILDINGS!”: At Paul Joy’s Economic Development Council meeting on March 13, over 50 people, residents and Belmont Center business owners, showed up to speak passionately against this zoning plan. Many reported this was the first meeting at which they felt heard, as the Planning Board isn’t listening. One older woman, a Belmont resident for fifty years, said the buildup was “monstrous”. Heads nodded all round. This plan destroys the unique charm and historic scale of our center, and replaces it with something like Alewife.

It’s time the Select Board and the Planning Board woke up to reality: that this plan will not deliver what they promise, and will deliver nasty consequences they steadfastly refuse to discuss. Ignoring reality is foolish, dangerous, irresponsible.

The truth may be painful, but ignoring the truth does not make it less real.

Belmont deserves better. Our homes, businesses and lives are on the line.

This is false. Here’s why: let’s walk through the town’s most recent fiscal impact analysis, of Nov 2024, available publicly online.

The equation the Planning Board offers is simple: zone for 4, 5 and 6 story buildings, with retail on ground level, and many floors of residential above, and hey presto, developers will swarm in and build, Belmont will rake in their taxes, and ours will go down..

At its February 27 public hearing, the Planning Board also told us that the Town is doing a fiscal impact study, but looking only at revenue, not costs! Could we run even our household budgets, much less a town, with no understanding of costs? It’s irresponsible.

Yet Chris Ryan insisted that doing a fiscal impact analysis looking at revenue only was fine, and that studying costs would cost too much! That’s absurd, and a bit lazy: any budgeting app can be filled out in minutes to model scenario impacts. 

The reason for these evasions is not hard to find. 

Take a look at the Town’s RKG Fiscal Analysis, commissioned November 2024, projecting income and costs of a high-build scenario and a moderate-build scenario in ALL OF BELMONT, NOT JUST THE TWO BLOCKS OF BELMONT CENTER. 

Look at the two charts below. The numbers project the final net income we could expect after all the buildup, assuming developer-friendly zoning would result in a rush to build as tall as possible on every offered spot.

The high-build scenario, at a MAXIMUM, would produce just $1,697K in additional income after building up in the whole town, after accounting for the fiscal impact of School Aged children (assessed at a ratio of .35 ).

The moderate- build scenario produces just $839K after accounting for a reasonable School Aged Children ratio: 10% of the $8.4 million we are looking at in overrides! And that’s after building up the whole town! 

And all this at what cost? At the cost of destroying our historic Center, driving out the many small businesses who won’t survive construction, adding tons of cars, straining the schools, exacerbating traffic, stressing town and emergency services, ruining the many Center abutters’ lives, and turning spacious Belmont into Somerville or Alewife. 

So, it seems the Planning Board has been selling us a delusion, or a lie.

But the numbers don’t lie. 

Which Belmont do YOU want?

Belmont Deserves Better. Our lives, homes and businesses depend on it.

– A concerned group of Belmont residents.

Belmont Town Meeting is being “railroaded” by the MBTA, specifically the MBTA Communities Act.  Here’s HOPE for those who  have dutifully followed the false words of certain “town planners ” and  “town administrators.” It is unknown if conflicts of interest exist among these folks but the speed of the “railroading” causes us to wonder.

Other communities are denying this Massachusetts overreach. Milton specifically. So far while Milton was denied certain claims they still have claims pending:

1. The State failed to follow Massachusetts Administrative Procedures Act, failing to properly notify cities and towns and their residents according to the procedures the State has established. The State attempted to file it as an Emergency action but they are unable to  meet the required justification

2.  The MBTA Communities Act has been declared an Unfunded Mandate by the State Auditor.  Info on how that is determined: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/learn-about-mandate-determinations

3.  The  Milton case did not address the Home Rule Currently MBTA Communities Act fails the State’s Home Rule provision. There is also a Federal Home Rule provision that may have been violated. Possible additional lawsuit.

4. Additional Lawsuit: During October 2024 a group of Rockport citizens sued the state on the basis of the unconstitutionality of the MBTA Community Act. Several Belmont residents joined this lawsuit as Intervenors. Most recently citizen groups from 35 different Massachusetts communities are also joining this lawsuit which will move forward as a Class Action suit.

“The question of Housing affordability is not even incorporated into this law. It falls into a law favoring the special interest of a few and not the people as a whole. The State argues that this law is needed to address a housing shortage but they have not substantiated that claim. Although many believe we have an affordability crisis, the affordability crisis has been exacerbated by the State’s inept, heavy-handed and bumbling attempts to make rentals and homes more affordable. In reality, Massachusetts is an expensive State to live in primarily due to its burdening taxes, wasteful spending and poor management all of which ultimately drives up the costs for homeowners and landlords. In addition,the State’s  Section 8 Policies have actually driven up the general costs of rentals. Based on this, Massachusetts affordability problems are government created and not easily corrected by the entity that incompetently generated them in the first place, namely our Government.  Although now the State is claiming that all these additional units they are dictatorially demanding will drive down the costs of rentals and homes, history does not support that claim. ” (Rockport resident, January 2025)

My second endorsement as the Millennials take charge of Belmont. 

Townie Talk endorses Paul Joy for Select Board

This April you will have a choice between Paul Joy and Taylor Yates for the Select Board. The Select Board oversees the Town Administrator, approves tax rates, determines whether overrides and debt exclusions go to the public for a vote, and is the general face of the Town among other things.

Taylor Yates is a successful realtor in a nearby community, married with children, and moved to town 6 years ago. He has been politically active from the start with a stint on the Vision 21 committee, Town Meeting since 2022, Chair of the Campaign to replace the elected Treasurer with an appointed one, and Planning Board Chair since 2024. 

Paul Joy is a successful management consultant in the environmentally sustainable infrastructure industry. He is married with kids and well known in the youth sports world as a member of the Belmont Soccer Board, Practice and Clinic scheduling coordinator, and coach. He also chaired the Belmont CO-OP Nursery School Board. He was equally as committed on the political side having chaired the Economic Development Committee, been appointed to the MBTA CAC and elected to Town meeting for Precinct 7. 

Both men have showed their commitment to Belmont through their volunteer service, and both have the background to serve on the Select Board.

My reason for endorsing Paul Joy is simple… we need fresh faces in Town leadership that will listen to all residents’ concerns before deciding on an issue. We can’t afford the same backroom deal making being sent to Town meeting for a rubber stamp of approval. Paul has shown the courage to challenge plans at Town Meeting and seek amendments to them. As you can imagine, anyone that challenges anything at Town Meeting is usually shamed quickly. Ask Mr. Macero or Mr. Roberts to confirm this.

I am impressed with his ability to handle stress. Can you imagine being a practice coordinator for Belmont’s 90+ soccer teams in a Town with limited space. Clearly, he can get things done. I already vetted that he is an advocate for Seniors. I pray for Belmont that he uses his intellect and compassion in a way that prioritizes the basic needs of all our residents before special interests. 

My major concern with Taylor is his willingness to “play the political game” catering to the powers that be. The recent Belmont Center Overlay Plan meeting he led feels like checking the box. His endorsements feel like he was hand selected to toe the company line. 

This Election for Select Board will be as consequential as the 2002 election between the legendary William Monahan and Paul Solomon. There is no conservative in the race this year, but this election is guaranteed to see a transfer of power from the Boomers to the Millennials. We Gen Xers apologize to the Millennials for not being able to slow the Boomers down enough from their spendthrift ways. Kinda sucks when your inheritance is massive debt but as I have heard for decades… you could always move. 

Cheers, 

PJ Looney

TownieTalk 02478

“Never Forget” “Never Again” AMDG

Belmont Center businesses are very worried about the Planning Board’s overlay zoning project being rushed to completion by May. They think it’s delusional and dangerous. We do too. 

They are worried they won’t survive the disruption and construction over years. Stores are already super challenged, customers would be deterred by 3-year construction, and it doesn’t take much to push a small store out of business.

They are particularly distressed that the new zoning plans will take away critical parking in the Claflin Lot, and replace it with a 4 story overshadowing building, as per the current plan.

They are unhappy the Planning Board hasn’t engaged with them sufficiently or consistently, to create a plan more sensitive to their life-or-death concerns, and more sensitive to preserving the character and charm of the Center itself. 

And they, like neighbors, abutters, and Town Meeting members, are disillusioned with the Planning Board’s lack of transparency and disclosure, its failure to do due diligence, its irresponsible denial of potential negative impacts, and its pie-in-the-sky decisions, which make a mockery of their talk about “consider the neighbors” (by destroying their businesses?)

Deran Muckjian, owner of The Toy Shop of Belmont, has lived here for 63 years, and is passionately opposed to the current plan. As he put it: 

“Why aren’t we focusing on other parts of Belmont like Purecoat or Pleasant Street, which could take a commercial build up?

We need to focus on what we HAVE, not take away the character of the Center, and we need to realize we are not Arsenal Mall.

Why don’t we fix the train station instead, which we can revive with state funds?

This zoning plan not only WON’T succeed in expanding commercial tax revenue, it WILL kill the small businesses which make the Center what it is.”

You can hear Deran commenting at the Feb 12 public meeting above.

*****

WHY isn’t the Planning Board actively studying impacts on area businesses, lives, and traffic? 

The Board hasn’t done its homework, or even basic due diligence on impacts. At the public meeting on February 25, Chris Ryan said he would do fiscal impact analysis ONLY focusing on revenue – but with no analysis of costs! 

You and I can’t manage a household budget without costs. And we’d be fired from jobs where we had to manage budgets and ignored costs. It’s delusional.

Planning without any information on costs is lazy, deceptive, and a recipe for a disaster which we and our children will have to live with for decades. 

Or is it not just laziness, but active deception, because they KNOW the costs on the town and the strain on services and schools, and fiscal impacts, will be huge? 

The Town Planner’s contention that they can’t do a cost analysis because it’s too expensive is bogus and laughable. In 5 minutes, any of us can download apps and spreadsheets which model impact scenarios, after plugging in the numbers. 

As an example of negative impacts, one Belmont Ctr business owner points out that if rents go up to the level of neighboring towns, after the buildout, to $65/sq foot, small businesses which can’t pay would quickly be driven out of town.

Yet that is exactly what the Planning Board is inviting. 

How would you like a Center with a CVS, but no Belmont Bookstore, no Toy Shop of Belmont, no Didriks, Revolve, Helena’s, Chocolate Dream, or Champions, no Wellington, Patou, Butternut Bakery, Qebrada, Stone Hearth Pizza or Rancatores? 

Trust in the Planning Board, after months of manipulated meetings, is already broken for many of us, and is steadily breaking for others. 

The PB can start to repair this trust, if it wishes, by doing the following:

1. Walk your own talk about “consider the neighbors”. 

Translation: HONOR the community’s and the consultant’s advice. Return to Map Option 1 – lower building heights, under 3 stories – on West Leonard Street.

2. LISTEN to business owners. Remove the pending seizure of the Claflin Lot.

3. Put taller-than-3-story buildings ONLY on Concord Ave, where neither abutters nor small businesses’ lives and livelihoods are endangered.

4. Plan creatively for available spaces in Belmont Ctr – eg the railway station.

5. Do a responsible fiscal analysis with costs as well as revenues projected under different scenarios. 

*****

Trust must be earned. This Planning Board and Town Planner are losing it fast. 

BELMONT DESERVES BETTER. OUR LIVES, HOMES AND BUSINESSES ARE ON THE LINE. 

– A Group of Concerned Belmont Center Residents.

It will kill the Center, not refresh it.

This plan packs tall buildings into little Belmont Center, ignores the public’s wishes expressed clearly at the design workshop and the consultant Ablecity’s recommendations – to be sensitive to impacts on neighbors – and worst of all, would kill our existing small businesses in the Center by taking away their parking! 

Look at the proposed overlay zoning maps attached, shown by Town Planner Chris Ryan at the meeting.

They show 3 to 3.5 stories high buildings on West Leonard Street, ignoring the public consensus at the January 22 design workshop to AVOID building high on West Leonard Street, to prevent overshadowing abutters. Our neighbors, even when strangers, seem to care more about this town and our community than the Planning Board – which has refused repeatedly to do neighborhood, traffic, schools impact or financial impact studies. 

And they remove most of the parking which Center businesses rely on to survive! 

WHY ARE WE DESTROYING BELMONT CENTER BUSINESSES IN THE NAME OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, WHEN MUCH BETTER COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS ARE BEGGING FOR REDEVELOPMENT eg PURECOAT and PLEASANT ST?

WHY IS THE PLANNING BOARD VIOLATING THE AIR, LIGHT AND VIEWSHED RIGHTS OF THE NEIGHBORING ABUTTERS, AGAINST THE STATED WISHES OF THE PUBLIC CONSENSUS AND THEIR OWN CONSULTANT? 

Why are they aligning proposed building heights on West Leonard St with the one ugly big building at #68 which violated every zoning regulation when it was built?

Why don’t they care at all about the historic character and scale of our Center?

We want to cut taxes by doing commercial development where it will flourish! 

Not build more residential on top of small businesses which just drains town services, does nothing net-net for revenue, and destroys neighbors’ lives!

TOWN MEETING MEMBERS, PLEASE VETO THIS PIE-IN-THE-SKY, DESTRUCTIVE AND IRRESPONSIBLE PLAN. The damage it will do will be irrevocable. 

THERE ARE MUCH BETTER REDEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES IN BELMONT.

BELMONT DESERVES BETTER. 

OUR HOMES, LIVES AND BUSINESSES DEPEND ON IT.

– A concerned group of Belmont residents.