Town Meeting 2013 - Session 4 Recap

Entering the fourth night of Belmont's Annual Town Meeting, many of us had expectations of some to-the-point discussions on two articles, vote, and get out of there and catch the last period of the Bruins game. At least TM did not go into overtime too.

Storm water and dog poo

First question: how should the town codify storm water management? The Town agreed, as part of our permit from the EPA, to do this - 10 years ago. No one mentioned why we sat on our butts for so long. In short, we have separate sanitary and storm sewer systems, and they mostly do not intermix. We want to keep pollutants from the storm branch, whether from where the sanitary branch comes close, or from general runoff and from construction sites.

The initial presentations by BOS member Ralph Jones and Community Development Director Glenn Clancy went well. They both know their stuff, and I was glad to see Glen get a well-deserved round of applause.

Discussion of proposed amendments by Bob McGaw did take a long time.  (clarify "customary" landscaping practices and changing the limit of the area of construction disruption where by-law kicks in) But the discussion was worthwhile, even if just to get people to think about the issues. Since there are exemptions for most dwellings (1-3 units), it seems the landscaping issue would affect very few people.

What was missing: is runoff really a problem from the bulk of Belmont's small construction sites? How often is Glenn's office called for runoff issues? Are there more than a small handful of complaints about landscaping runoff? I don't know how that kind of pollution would be measured. Or is this by-law mostly a formality needed to satisfy the EPA?

I've never heard the term "dog feces" so many times in one day. Several speakers mentions that. Yes, it's a problem, the catch-basin cleaning crews confirm that, and tests downstream (Charles and Mystic Rivers) show evidence. I don't think there is an effective solution, unfortunately.

A minor ambiguity was found (with several lawyers nodding their heads - for free!), and some were calling for tabling the entire article, fix it over the coming weeks as an amendment, and bring it back up in June. No! We'd just rehash much of the same discussion. We wisely choose the path of least time and effort to achieve the same end result - just fixing it (hopefully a single-sentence fix) at a future TM, even the special May 29th.

Seniors and property tax

I was very surprised at the depth of the discussion on raising the property tax abatement for a very small number of low-income seniors. Well, it's not quite an abatement, the beneficiaries have to work off that tax credit in various Town departments. Missing info: when was the max last raised?

Some pressed for a no vote because we don't really have any money to spare. Some voted no out of this principal: the leadership in town is not doing its job, and they have to wake up to fix structural finance problems. There was quite a bit of grumbling to that effect afterward. (Recall that in Mark Paolillo's first campaign for Selectman, he advocated frequent, small tax overrides to keep pace. I've been mostly paying attention, and have heard nothing along these lines put forward.) But even with a bump in taxes to restore services, it does not help the seniors on the edge.

I wish people we remember what a "revolving account" is. It seems every TM, some think money in these come from taxes. I tell people to just think of it like a bank account, where fees paid by users can accumulate until spent.

No one brought up using equity in houses. Supposed you own a $650k house free and clear. What's wrong with using $5k per year of that equity to pay property taxes? If you had $650k in an Index 500 mutual fund, you'd be expected do that. (Note to my mom: if you want to do this, hence decreasing any inheritance, that's totally fine with me and the Bowe brothers.)

Whenever there is talk of an override and our relatively high (per-person, compared to nearby towns) property taxes, fear, uncertainty, and doubt spread about longtime residents not being able to afford to stay in their houses. Although very few use it, this is just one mechanism to ease some of those fears.

Underlying theme - planning and leadership

I'm seeing and hearing an underlying theme to many discussions this year, both during TM itself and in side chatter. The public wants strong and clear planning, more attention paid to the bigger picture, and a longer time horizon. Are the Selectmen and other boards and committees hearing this? Efforts too-often are centered on getting by for one more year. They are re-arranging deck chairs on the titanic, where we need someone to grab the wheel and steer.