Town Meeting 2013 - Session 3 Recap

Third time is the charm, right? Almost. The third night of Belmont's Annual Town Meeting had some lively discussions, and most of use expect we would not need to re-convene until the Special Town Meeting May 29. Alas, it was not to be.

Our new State Rep, Dave Rogers, made his first appearance at TM. (Belmont by-laws make our rep a TM member at-large, like Treasure, Town Clerk, Selectmen). I thought he sounded good - confident, clear, etc. Bringing good news on roads funding was a pleasant surprise, though that should not have been. That's part of what the governor's budget effort is all about. I did expect more than a 1.5% (or so) bump in education funding, partly because that is another of Gov Patrick's priorities, partly because we have nearly 100 more kids in the system than the previous year.

Pool

Article 28, for 40 minutes, was for the formation of a building committee for a new pool. This would oversee spending of the CPA funds, voted last week, for design. I expected it would be 10 minutes and done. The Capital Budget Committee was against this, wanting to delay until we (royal we) can - once again - look at all large capital projects. Chair Ann Marie Mahoney said we could take it up at a fall TM. There were lots of conflicting ideas, many of which I agreed with. We are in the unfortunate spot of too many interdependencies of projects, given our lack of available space in that part of town. Would waiting 6 months make a big difference? Not really, unless the existing pool completely fails; that would surprise no one. Should the pool jump the queue of projects just because it has design funds (though construction funds, unless an eventual debt exclusion passes). One might say the same for the library, whose supporters were told not to do that. But then the intent of CPA is to do exactly this kind of project, though could not pay for it (unless we can committee many years of CPA funds toward a bond). But if a design (through construction documents) is done now, then sits with construction unfunded for a few years, would the design still be valid? It a risk it would grow stale, needing further work to revive it. I guess that applies equally to the pool or library.

I don't really have confidence that the various elected and appointed officials would crisply settle the priorities by mid-fall.

Pot on Hold

I think the moratorium on allowing medical marijuana (Article 30), thus allowing the Planning Board to draft regulations, is mostly an exercise in finding a solution in search of a problem. Of course some segments of any town flip out just because it's marijuana, no matter how tightly regulated by the state. Why didn't they flip out about the oxycontin at Shore Drug? I'm far more likely to need a cannabis dispensary than a nail salon, barber, or bank from East Boston. And I feel my children and I are more at risk walking past the car wash than such a dispensary.

Religious and Municipal Buildings

Some good points were made on Article 31, an effort to preserve religious and municipal buildings built before 1950. In short, how much should we ease up on restrictions (affordable housing, parking, density) to keep these 20 or so buildings if the owners ever want to sell? I thought Planning Board chair Sami Baghdady's arguments against any amendments were strong: the intent of this was preservation, such projects are often on the edge of economic viability, and these incentives could reel some developers back from the edge of wanting to demolish them. The pictures of the former St Theresa's in Watertown (School and Mt Auburn) were fabulous, and the developers did have to go through a lot of pain to get there. (My in-laws were married there in 1950, so there is some sentimenal value for me in that.)

Book Him, Dano

The presentation of final article of the night, to beef up criminal background checks (Article 22) was not nearly as clear as it should have been. Several people said to the moderator that they were not quite sure what they were voting on. This came out of new state ice cream vendor regulations, and Belmont wants to expand those checks to a few other areas. Unless I mis-understood, it was expanding the depth of checks on people who are already getting licenses for various activities. I think simple bullet lists saying who is covered, who is not covered, and what the change in procedure (depth of check) is, would have helped tremendously and shortened that item from 50 minutes to more like 15. (And we'd be watching the Sox game Wed night.)

Wednesday night: the last two articles of this group, on storm water management. I predict we'll either be done in less than a half hour, or more than an hour and half, but not between.