After four installments and hours of debate on matters ranging from easements to potholes to trees, this year’s Town Meeting might be best remembered for what wasn’t heard last night: a single dissenting voice among the more than 200 assembled Town Meeting members to a motion to allocate $39 million for reconstruction of the Wellington Elementary School.
The unanimous vote was sweet victory for all those in town who have been pushing to rebuild Wellington for almost a decade. Pat Brusch and Joel Mooney, along with architect Jonathan Levy did a fine job responding to questions from the audience about costs and contingencies. A new plan to relocate the entire Wellington population at Belmont High School also seemed to sit will with Town Meeting members (and the community) and could save Belmont substantially in transportation costs. When the vote was finally taken, not a single voice was raised in opposition, and Town Meeting erupted, with a sustained and standing ovation, as well as lots of high fives. There’s still work to do — including a big Get out the Vote effort on Monday, but the lack of a single dissenting voice at Town Meeting has got to come as good news for members of Together for Wellington, and all those who have worked tirelessly for almost a decade to get this school rebuilt. On to the election!
In other business:
- There was continued teeth gnashing over the escalating costs related to Minuteman Career & Technical High School but, as is so often the case, little to do but vote for the expenditure. While a concerted effort was made to vote down the appropriation, as a sign of protest over Minuteman’s slow pace of reform and cost reduction, we learned that 13 of the 16 schools in the catchment have already approved funding, meaning that Belmont is bound to pay its share, regardless. (Six member towns must all reject the Minuteman budget for it to be reconsidered.) WC and TM member Liz Allison pointed out that a “no” vote would only necessitate another special Town Meeting to approve the allocation that we’re bound by the terms of our contract with the school to pay. We also learned something of the formula used to assess payments to the school: a mixture of average household income, historical per pupil spending and number of pupils enrolled. TM members were also shocked and dismayed to lean that fully 1/3 of all enrolled students at Minuteman were from towns outside the catchment — and that those towns pay significantly less, per pupil, to send those students there than member towns. (That is: we’re subsidizing other towns’ students’ education at Minuteman.)There was consensus that Belmont needs to start coordinating with other towns to act in concert and push reform at Minuteman if anything is to happen. We’ll see… The motion to allocate funds to Minuteman was approved by a vote of 117 to 94.
- Belmont’s getting a new home page with a cooler, easier to use interface. You can check out a trial version at: http://belmontma.virtualtownhall.net/public_documents/index9
Note: this page is not live yet and not all features work. It’s definitely a vast improvement over the current home page, and should make it easier to find the information you’re looking for. I must say, though, that I’m perplexed on the Town’s decision to spend money making a series of promotional videos (with CGI Communications?) selling Belmont to random Web visitors. Seems like we already do a good job attracting new residents from across the country and the world. Is this really money well spent?! - Cemetary maintenance is proving expensive (did I hear $38k a month?) and plans for the new cemetary to be budget neutral are being pushed back because of the bad economy. (Original plan was to have it self sustaining within 6 years. I did not hear a new estimate.) Members rightly pointed out that maintenance at parks and playgrounds for the living was being neglected while maintenance of the cemetaries was green lighted. Ralph Jones made a passionate argument that our budget (and willingness to pass overrides) reflected our values and priorities, and that the town simply needs more money if it wants to fix its roads, maintain its parks, take care of its cemeteries and adequately fund town services and the schools. I’m putting words in his mouth but…way to go Ralph!
- It will cost $129,000 annually to operate the new Senior Center. In other news: the Selectmen want a big, ugly backup geneator at the center to be removed.
The other thing we ought to be lobbying for (in concert with other towns) is a higher income tax, with correspondingly increased local aid. The money's got to come from somewhere, and the income tax is the fairest one we've got. I'm incredibly disappointed that the legislature is choosing instead to focus on the sales tax.
I have a question about Minuteman. Kim Becker stood up and said that she felt the contract was not unbreakable, and that we should work harder to get out of it, but Nancy Reppucci asked how we could get out of it, was told all other member towns would have to agree, which they wouldn't since their assessments would go up, and she was basically laughed at for asking. For one thing, why did those in Belmont who started us off with Minuteman ever agree to something that had no potential for getting out of, and why does one commenter say maybe we can get out of it, but another commenter is put down when she asks how we can get out of it? If there really is a way to get out of it, then it seems like the town needs to pursue that. If not, I guess the town needs to concentrate on seeing how it can help Minuteman cut its budget, although I'm guessing the Superintendent doesn't want any help on that.
Hello- Kim Becker here- if 5 or 6 towns (I am not sure which) vote no on Minuteman, the budget goes back to Minuteman for reassessment- since this has never happened, I don't know what it means. If all of the towns get together and say no, then the contract can be broken. Anne Mahon and I are suggesting that rather than get individual presentations from the principal, we should all have a big presentation together, and maybe then the whole consortium would recognize the inequity of the member towns vs. non member towns. If we had voted no last night, I believe it would have sent a very strong message to Minuteman to treat their budget and programs as we have had to treat ours- start cutting programs that don't serve many children.
Anne Mahon and I have already set up meetings with 3 towns in the Fall to discuss the issue. We must get this resolved before we end up with a million dollar line item one year from now.
Please understand that I do not want to eliminate Minuteman as an option, but we are paying way too much for the children we send.
I have to say YEAHHHHHH for the unanimous vote for Wellington! Someone just posted a comment on Belmont List serv that he is an old person in Belmont and will be voting no with all of his friends- this is ridiculous! Please Vote on Monday and bring 5 friends who may otherwise have not bothered. As much as it matters to us, there are a LOT of people in town who would happily vote yes if asked, but simply don't realize the vote on Monday is for Wellington. SPREAD THE WORD!
Had a thought on that generator — any particular reason it could not be put on a trailer, with a hookup provided at the senior center (and perhaps other buildings, depending upon cost and usefulness)? Presumably we would store it at town yard (and I hope that it would be stored far enough from back yards that a monthly test would be no noisier than what we get when the plows are all deployed, or a train goes by).
Thanks Kim, for the clarification. So you are not suggesting we get out of the whole Minuteman deal, just that we organize with other towns to hopefully consolidate our unhappiness with the budgets in a way that forms a plan for enough towns to reject it to force them to clean up the budget. That makes a lot of sense. It seems to me that it might not even be that much work, since I imagine all of the member towns are struggling the way we are and don't think it's right for Minuteman to have such high expenses. Sounds like all it would need is coordination, at least for a start. I wonder if John Bowe or someone else like that would want to head up something like that – he was definitely well informed about the details last night and now that he's not on school committee he wouldn't have a conflict of interest (if being on it might have given him one) and surely he has tons of free time now, right (!)
I will pass the suggestion on to John! I think Anne Mahon and I will start the ball rolling- and yes, I think it is simply going to take a bit of organizing- none of us want this extra expense right now. If we jump on the issue this Fall, then we won't find ourselves in the same place again next year. Hopefully the principal of Minuteman will do the right thing and not force us to act on all of this.
I would like to clarify the point made about the Town's promotional videos with CGI Communications. There is absolutely no cost to the Town for this project. My apologies for not mentioning this at Town Meeting.
Dave Petto
IT Director
Town of Belmont
What shocked me most about this issue was that the per pupil cost at Minuteman is around $25,000 per student for towns in the collaborative, but the state sets the per student cost at $17,000 for students from communities outside the collaborative. Meanwhile, Belmont is scraping by with a per student cost of around $11,000. That is unreasonable and unfair, and I personally voted no on the Minuteman budget even thought I knew it was only symbolic for this year. We have to get this issue resolved. I am tired of hearing that it is a lously contract that we signed in the 70's and we can't change, contracts get changed all the time.
I know. I voted “yes,” but only because I was convinced that a “no” vote would just end up costing the town $$, without any possibility of changing the minds of Minuteman's administration. We need a Minuteman task force to rally support among member communities to reject next year's budget if it doesn't show progress reducing costs and diversifying the programming to better suit the needs/interests of member towns. I've thought maybe a school within a school or an IB program? I could imagine a lot of interest from Belmont families in something like that. I'm not sure that giving Minuteman more opportunities to recruit kids will change the numbers (or the costs) much at all.
I know. I voted “yes,” but only because I was convinced that a “no” vote would just end up costing the town $$, without any possibility of changing the minds of Minuteman's administration. We need a Minuteman task force to rally support among member communities to reject next year's budget if it doesn't show progress reducing costs and diversifying the programming to better suit the needs/interests of member towns. I've thought maybe a school within a school or an IB program? I could imagine a lot of interest from Belmont families in something like that. I'm not sure that giving Minuteman more opportunities to recruit kids will change the numbers (or the costs) much at all.