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Re: Open Letter: Belmont Needs a Bailout

Paul Roberts — Sun, 24 May 2020 13:58:16 -0000

yes - thanks mary!

Re: Open Letter: Belmont Needs a Bailout

Paul Roberts — Fri, 22 May 2020 13:34:37 -0000

Again: we are in the bottom sixth of towns in Massachusetts in tax rate per $100,000 and the bottom sixth in terms of per pupil spending. That means 5 of every 6 towns has a higher property tax rate than us and spends more per pupil in their schools than us. This is the result of years of conservative political leadership pushing a "no overrides/no taxes" agenda. COVID has exposed the downside risk of living so close to the bone. So "yes," it's time for Belmont to step up and do what's right for our kids, seniors and working families. Let the goal be that Belmont is "average" - 50th percentile for per pupil spending (with - say - Westborough) and 50th percentile for residential taxes. That would result in tens of millions more dollars to preserve critical Town and School services, public safety, roads, etc. Enough with the potholed roads, crowded classes - with teachers begging students and parents to donate Kleenex because the District can't afford to provide them.

Re: Open Letter: Belmont Needs a Bailout

Paul Roberts — Fri, 22 May 2020 13:32:54 -0000

Honestly, this doesn't have anything to do with the town being irresponsible with its money. This is inflation - salaries, healthcare, materials, labor. Those grow faster than 2.5% annually, our revenue can't because of Prop 2 1/2. The result is chronic operational deficits. If I told you that you weren't allowed to make more than 2.5% more next year - or any year - than the year before, but let transportation and healthcare and food costs go up by any amount -3% or 5% or 10% annually, you'd be in the same place as Belmont.

Re: Many Victories in a Narrow Defeat

Paul Roberts — Sat, 06 Apr 2019 10:47:56 -0000

Thanks David!

Re: The Belmont Community Path needs Belmont Community Support (Once Again)

Paul Roberts — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 13:17:13 -0000

Good discussion. I think we underestimate how much landscaping including hard and soft barriers (berms, fences, mature plantings) can do to insulate Channing Road back yards from path activity. These are - obviously - far easier to implement and pay for than moving a commuter rail line even as much as a foot in either direction, buying and partially demolishing a private, commercial property or building 300' to 400' pedestrian bridge that will have to rise 20+ feet in the air to clear traffic. The issue for Belmont will always be to justify any added complexity (which equals cost). Abutters worried about privacy isn't a challenge that is unique to Belmont - its a factor with any development of any type. MBTA and MassDOT are likely to be nonplussed by arguments that our residents deserve extra consideration and expense to address privacy issues vs. people in Waltham, Arlington, Lexington, etc.

Re: Trash Talk: What’s the Psychology of Littering?

Paul Roberts — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 22:01:31 -0000

Yeah - I mean, I guess they packed up their trash very _neatly_ and then left it for someone else to take care of. What the hell? Just put it in your trunk and bring it home, y'all!

Re: Trash Talk: What’s the Psychology of Littering?

Paul Roberts — Mon, 08 Oct 2018 17:46:08 -0000

I've noticed the same thing - and I'm not sure why our businesses are lagging in providing recycling options for customers. There are some receptacles for recyclables on Leonard but they're small and far and few between. There's def. need for improvement here - maybe Belmont Center Business Association are the right folks to approach? Or DPW?

Re: Belmontonian: Mass AG Reviewing Alleged Open Meeting Violation By Planning Board

Paul Roberts — Sun, 05 Nov 2017 09:17:31 -0000

Thanks for sharing Geoff! More to come on PB, I suspect.

Re: Round 3: Support the Library Tonight at 7:00 PM!

Paul Roberts — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 13:06:10 -0000

yes - i saw that also. great article. thanks for sharing!!

Re: Selectmen to Accountability: Drop Dead!

Paul Roberts — Wed, 13 Sep 2017 08:30:41 -0000

Totally agree. Jim appears to work hard to keep an open mind...but only so he can reach the wrong conclusion in the end. I'm not sure how that's better than someone who just jumps to the wrong conclusion from the get-go.

Re: Opinion: Mischief Unmanaged on Planning Board

Paul Roberts — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 20:12:30 -0000

Thanks so much for sharing, Geoff and thanks for spreading the word.

Re: Round 3: Support the Library Tonight at 7:00 PM!

Paul Roberts — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 12:57:38 -0000

Nobody is saying the Library can't move. In fact, the idea of moving the Library across the street has been floated before. This is about process. You really need to understand how our town government (or any government) works. The voters in Belmont elect the Library's Board of Trustees specifically to be the governing body of the library. People stand for these offices and run on ideas and experience. And there's good reason: the Board has fiduciary responsibility for the Library, including its building.

So, if moving the Library is in the best interests of the town, the LBOT would be the body to move that idea forward - not the Planning Board. Proposing - out the blue - to move a facility that you have no jurisdiction over and to put it on privately owned land that the Town would have to lease back just boggles the mind. The plan and their introduction of it has been irresponsible in the extreme. We live in the United States. Throwing around nutty ideas is a Constitutional right. But, practically, it doesn't help the functioning of our town government in Belmont to have appointed committees - who are expected to be professional and measured- creating needless controversy without any clear benefit. The Planning Board should stay in its lane and - frankly - apologize to the Library and the voters for this needless mess.

Re: What the B**k??! Belmont’s Library Needs Your Support Tonight and Tuesday Evening

Paul Roberts — Wed, 23 Aug 2017 08:47:51 -0000

Well...that makes sense if you think that there are limited resources and not enough money to spread around. But the federal budget is more than $3 TRILLION dollars. If we just shift a fraction of our "wars of choice" budget to an area like K-12 education, we free up millions of dollars in federal aid per district. Take the war in Afghanistan - conservative estimates are that it has cost $804 billion over 16 years. Divide that by 13,500 school districts in the US and you get $59 million per district over 16 years - or about $3.7 million per district per year in additional funding. Sure, economically challenged districts will capture most of that, but there's plenty to make a meaningful difference in affluent and poor communities alike.

Re: Selectmen Punt on Library-Car Wash Idea. Go to Planning Board Tonight, or send an E-mail.

Paul Roberts — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 07:50:28 -0000

Thanks Rennie. Corrected that error with Karl's email. I think the email messages hit home, judging from Chairwoman Allison's comments at the meeting last night.

Re: What the B**k??! Belmont’s Library Needs Your Support Tonight and Tuesday Evening

Paul Roberts — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 07:43:41 -0000

No question that the space/function needs are changing dramatically with technology, Jon. As for "spend wisely," Belmont and every other community in the Commonwealth - if not the nation - are really getting the s**t end of the stick. We have an $18 trillion economy and a $3.8 trillion federal budget, but somehow the burden of building a $200 million public high school falls to the 15,000 households in Belmont and (to a lesser extent) the taxpayers of Massachusetts? That's outrageous. Education is a federal priority and critical to the nation and economy's future. Uncle Sam should be paying a substantial portion of the cost of capital investments like BHS, the public library, police station and so on. Instead, this burden gets pushed down to a few thousand home owners. The homeowners are right to cry "Uncle!" and parents and citizens are right to demand better services and modern infrastructure. Something has to give.

Re: What the B**k??! Belmont’s Library Needs Your Support Tonight and Tuesday Evening

Paul Roberts — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 08:59:15 -0000

Hey Geoff. Yes, I wondered whether that was a different issue as well because the description didn't seem to fit - but I couldn't find any other mention of the car wash on the agenda and I know (and Mrs. Allison confirmed) that PB does intend to take the issue up at its next meeting. So it appears as if this has been left off the agenda, or is packed inside some other innocuous sounding agenda item? It's all really unclear. (As is the membership of PB, judging from last night's BOS meeting!)

Re: What the B**k??! Belmont’s Library Needs Your Support Tonight and Tuesday Evening

Paul Roberts — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 07:34:19 -0000

Hey Jon. Totally with you on the "leaseback" idea which makes absolutely no sense given that we already own a library and the land on which it sits. The Library Board of Trustees has actually moved away from the "shiny new library" plan and has a more modest renovation and expansion in mind now. I think there's no question we need to invest in our public library which is the single most used public building in town.

I will take issue with your idea that libraries are a thing whose time has passed. The lending library piece is less important than it was 50 years ago before the Internet (though it is still heavily used). But libraries as a place for people to access information (including the Internet), work, learn, research and share ideas are even more important in our information driven economy than they were 50 years ago. Let's not assume everyone can pay for FiOS and reach into their wallet for books, computer software, research databases and the like! Its hard in an affluent community like Belmont to grasp that, but information and knowledge/education is a commodity that used to be limited to the upper classes. Libraries (and public schools) provide it - free of cost - to everyone. That's critical!

Re: Bill Proposes Way to Make Walmart Pay for its Multi-Billion Dollar Food Stamp Subsidy

Paul Roberts — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 07:27:54 -0000

Yes. We look to the private sector and lean on it heavily to provide security - healthcare, employment, etc. However, corporations' obligations are not to the public, the society or to the nation, but to their bottom line and their shareholders. They're not immoral, but they are amoral.

Re: Bill Proposes Way to Make Walmart Pay for its Multi-Billion Dollar Food Stamp Subsidy

Paul Roberts — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 07:26:16 -0000

Yeah - this is what I'd consider "place holder" legislation. Aspirational and oriented to a day when/if DEMs are in power again.

Re: Stand with Facts, Not Fear on Welcoming Town Resolution

Paul Roberts — Sun, 30 Apr 2017 18:38:21 -0000

Thanks, Mike!

Re: We Saved The Farmers’ Market (For Now)

Paul Roberts — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 09:16:12 -0000

Hey Sandi. Great points. There were some business owners (Quebrada, and Foodies themselves) who stood up for BFM and others (Belmont Toy) who spoke against it. Would be easier if Belmont Center businesses could speak with one voice, but these are all individual entrepreneurs and their businesses are all different, so...

Re: Post Election Analysis: It’s the Turnout, Stupid!

Paul Roberts — Sun, 09 Apr 2017 14:26:42 -0000

Thanks, Mike! Lots of lessons here for future campaigns.

Re: Remember the Town Green (and vote Adam Dash)

Paul Roberts — Thu, 30 Mar 2017 07:48:48 -0000

Tea Party-endorsed conservative Republican. #wrongforbelmont Check it out: https://web.archive.org/web...

Re: Call To Action: Show Support For Belmont Community Path Monday Evening!

Paul Roberts — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 08:37:51 -0000

Also: point of clarification - Belmont does _not_ have the state's worst student teacher ratio, though that ratio (17:1) is certainly not good. DOE data shows a few districts with higher student to teacher ratios, though many of them are charters. Our override this year should bring our ratio down (and our district rating up in rankings like Boston Magazine's "Best of Boston" up - for whatever that's worth) but you're right to point out that the student teacher ratio in Belmont is too high and that more investment is needed to bring it down to a level that will support the work of teachers in class - say 14:1 or 15:1. http://profiles.doe.mass.ed...

Re: Call To Action: Show Support For Belmont Community Path Monday Evening!

Paul Roberts — Thu, 24 Dec 2015 08:31:41 -0000

Jon - I really appreciate your comments and I'm glad you support the path and that you're reading Blogging Belmont. I will point out - again - that the points you're making seem more based on emotion (or bias) than fact. US Census data shows that the biggest share of bike commuters are poor, not wealthy. I refer you to this from 2014: http://www.census.gov/newsr...

To quote: "Those with a graduate or professional degree or higher and those with less than a high school degree had the highest rates of biking to work, at 0.9 and 0.7 percent, respectively 1.5 percent of those with an income of $10,000 or less commuted to work by bicycle, the highest rate of bicycle commuting by any income category."

This is simply a question of Belmont investing in 21st century infrastructure - enabling alternative modes of transportation, just as we invested massively in roads for automobiles in the 20th century. It was a choice we made as a community and as a society (and economy). The same will be true of pedestrian ways like the Community Path.

As for the override - I'm not sure why you think the political organization that won an override in 2015 can't do so again in 2017. Its not like there's "override juice" and once its used up, then its gone. These are political campaigns to educate and motivate voters. We did it once, we can do it again.

The path _will_ be almost entirely paid for by state and federal money. But to qualify for that, we have to show that we want the path and are willing to commit to it: by paying for engineering studies and the path design. That's a small fraction of the overall cost, but it is a kind of "table stakes" that the State and D.C. are looking for.

Again: as I said in my article - I'm very respectful of the interests and rights of abutters. I don't blame them for raising concerns. I really blame our political leadership for lacking vision and commitment to a project that will so clearly benefit our town, including walkers, cyclists, businesses on Brighton, Belmont Center and in Waverley. The BOS's inability to actually commit to a course of action is, unfortunately, a well established pattern and is harmful for the town.

As for the "you're being disrespectful" - I'm just speaking the truth and using facts to support what I say. People say I'm "divisive" for calling attention to the fact that opponents are promulgating rumor and disinformation and trying to derail what everyone recognizes is an important project. That's OK. I'm a journalist by profession - I'm totally cool with being disliked and having people angry at me.

But let's be clear: I'm just calling attention to the abutters' efforts to delay/kill/derail the path. They havent exactly been secretive about their desire to do so. They don't like it because they'd just as soon kill this project quietly, as they've done before. That's not going to happen this time and they're pissed. I don't blame them.