OK – we’re a week out from our Town election, so I better get my thoughts down before too much time passes and life moves on. (OK…it already has. But still…) Let’s take the clearest message from this year’s Town…
Belmont goes to the polls on Tuesday (April 7) to elect our local government (Select Board, School Committee, Moderator, Town Meeting, etc.) Here are my picks for the contested races on the ballot.
Proposed amendments seek to gut a sought-after zoning update for Belmont Center for reasons that aren’t clear. That could complicate an already heated discussion at Belmont Town Meeting.
Remember that cartoon bill in the Schoolhouse Rock! video? Sitting up on Capitol Hill, singing about the long, long journey to reach Congress? Belmont doesn’t have Congress. But it does have its own legislative body: Town Meeting. Town Meeting is…
Belmont Moderator Michael Crowley details a new citizens petition asking Town Meeting to authorize the Select Board to seek special state legislation that would allow Belmont to hold hybrid and remote Town Meetings on a permanent basis.
Melrose’s successful $13.5 million override vote in November holds valuable lessons for Belmont, which – commercial development or not – will need to keep passing overrides to fund our Town.
In her latest If I May opinion piece, Judith Feinleib calls out the town’s political leadership for what she describes as efforts to dismiss contrary voices and opinions. Feinleib calls on residents to speak up.
The needlessly long and toxic debate over the rededication of the ice rink is sowing anger, discontent and distrust in the Town’s leadership when they can least afford it. The solution to the rink problem? Skip it!
Now that Belmont has approved its plan for the State’s MBTA Communities Act, it faces a critical issue: how to increase commercial development even as it obeys the requirements imposed by the state’s one size fits all law.
In a blatant display of the dangers inherent in concentrating power in the executive, the Select Board eliminated hybrid town meetings for both the May and June sessions citing misleading information, and silenced one of its members, writes Town Meeting Member Judith Feinleib.