Tag: Belmont

Crazy ideas for ’09: Smaller is better for Town Meeting

Town Meeting, as it currently exists in Belmont, is too large and too unwieldy to serve the town as it should.

The high costs of doing nothing

The town’s older schools are going to require capital investments that are 10x to 20x greater than the one new school (Chenery) in the next few years…and these are just the repairs that we know about.

Rash of break-ins hits Belmont, Arlington

A rash of break-ins has broken out across Belmont and Arlington in recent weeks in what Belmont PD investigators think is an organized and professional operation carried out by one or two groups of criminals.

Update: Important meetings on school budgeting start Tuesday

NOTE: The School Committee Meeting has changed locations. It will be held tonight (Tuesday) at 7:30 PM in the Wellington Elementary Music Room, not the Community Room at the Chenery, as indicated on the SC Web site. Those of you…

Reader Poll: A new role for the Benton Branch Library?

As many readers may already know, the Library Board of Trustees recently voted to close the Benton Branch library after more than a century of operation. According to this article in the Belmont Citizen Herald, the recent decision to close…

Parsing the election results in Belmont

Yes we can! Tuesday, November 4, 2008, was a wonderful and historic day in the life of our nation, and Belmont’s voters turned out in force yesterday to be a part of it. So how did we come down on…

Rep. Brownsberger: Thoughts on Question 1

There is a moral dimension to this vote. It is morally wrong to abandon the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, the abused children, the working single mothers who can’t afford health care for their kids and the many others who depend on the state for assistance in one form or another. That’s really what we are talking about — it’s not about optional services and it’s mostly not about waste. – Will Brownsberger on Ballot Question 1

Opponents: Question 1 would sap $11.2m from Belmont

One of the interesting revelations…is what a vicious spiral we would find ourselves in, were Question 1 to pass. Why? Because so much of the federal aid we receive is contingent on the level of state aid…As we slash programs to try to shrink our budget, we will also watch federal dollars being sucked out of state and back to Washington D.C., leaving Massachusetts poorer and more desperate than ever.

PJ’s Paradox: planning for the future in a troubled economy

Reading the comments that B2’s loyal readers leave is usually more interesting than reading my blog posts. While I’m usually content to leave them as comments, occasionally readers suggest ideas that are so interesting they deserve their own post (and…

Lights out on lights out

As reported in today’s Sunday Globe, it looks like the town’s plans to turn off its street lights is back on the shelf. If you’ve been following this in the town paper and online, you know that Town Administrator Tom…