One week to the Wellington Vote

A combination of work, School Committee, family obligations and a focus on Together for Wellington have taken me offline for the last week. Apologies. I won’t let it happen again. 😉 But Bloggingbelmont is still here and gearing up for a busy week ahead: Town Meeting MOnday evening, School Committee Tuesday evening (bound to be eventful), then a sprint to next Monday’s debt exclusion vote on the Wellington.

A couple things on that note:

First: Together for Wellington is looking for volunteers for this final week and for election day to do sign holding and poll checking. They’re looking for folks to act as poll checkers (basically: you sit behind the voter check-in table and record which T4W supporters have voted).  You can volunteer anytime from 7 am until 5 pm.

Together for Wellington is also looking for volunteers to hold signs on Monday June 8th (election day). Times Needed:  7:00 am – 9:00 am, 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm. You’ll be a very visible reminder around town to head to the polls and vote Yes!  If you’re interested in volunteering, contact me or e-mail

Gretchen McClain  (poll-checking)
gmcclain(at)verizon(dot)net
Ellen Kassaraba or Chris Doyle (sign-holding)
ellen(at)kassaraba(dot)com
chris(at)bramsdoyle(dot)com

In other news:  There’s a flurry of editorial activity on behalf of the upcoming Wellington vote, including letters from Angelo Firenze and Town Treasurer  Floyd Carman in support of a “yes” vote in the special election on June 8. Mr. Firenze notes that “the problems with the Wellington make renovation of the existing structure impractical.” Mr. Carman notes:

“From a dollars and cents perspective — taking the Wellington in its current condition — if we do nothing now, in three to five years the school could potentially fail and as a town we will have no choice but to rebuild or renovate…The $12.4 million funding from the Mass. School Building Authority, in my opinion, is a gift.”

The paper also published a timeline story, providing a history of the Wellington from construction to…reconstruction, basically. An interesting read.

BCH regular Tony Oberdorfer weighed in with an opinion piece (New Wellington: a bad idea) that suggests Belmontonians stop pushing so hard for their kids to go to four year colleges so we could make better use of Minuteman Voc Tech and using money gained from shutting down Wellington to relieve “minor overcrowding” at the remaining elementary schools. Enough said about that.

There will be more this week, including visibility efforts around town (lawn signs, at long last) and a big get out the vote effort on election day. Stay tuned!