It’s election day in Belmont, with contested races for a number of important positions from Select Board to the Board of Health and Town Meeting. As the turnout experts say: its not enough to just say you intend to vote…
Closing an elementary school? Laying off 120 teachers? Those are the choices we’d face if a Select Board candidate makes good on his promise to cut $10 million from the Schools’ budget. Don’t let that happen.
COVID special orders will eventually end. Our Select Board should vote now to allow Belmont committee members to deliberate remotely.
A group of anti-tax residents plans to ask the Select Board to halt work on the 7-12 School and abandon the Community Path project. Concerned Belmontonians should tune in to the Select Board Zoom meeting Monday evening at 7:00 PM to support those projects.
At the end of the day: putting the question to voters costs the Town of Belmont nothing. Not giving the voters a choice to throw a lifeline to the Town, on the other hand, has very high costs associated with it.
With per pupil spending in Belmont already about $3,000 per student/per year below the State average per district ($12,700 in Belmont vs. $15,900 avg.), our public schools entered the pandemic stretched to the breaking point. Now we risk plunging into a full-blown fiscal crisis with layoffs of instructional staff, increased class sizes and cuts to supplies.