School Committee member Dan Scharfman is the latest to pick up papers to run for a seat on the Board of Selectmen, following the decision by current member Angelo Firenze not to seek re-election. Scharfman is the third person to step forward after Matt Sullivan of the Board of Library Trustees and Andy Rojas...
So…hopefully you all know by now about Will’s victory in the Democratic Primary last night. If you’re hearing it for the first time now, I’d refer you to this write up in the Belmont Citizen Herald, or this one at The Globe (onerous paywall). After that, though, I just saw this excellent analysis by Franklin...
In which Paul discovers that, despite voting in almost every election for the past six years, he is an "Inactive Voter" in Belmont - one of about 4,000 in town (one in four registered voters), according to an updated list compiled by the Town Clerk.
We’re here at the third installment of Town Meeting, after a quick and dirty detour through a special Town Meeting. Rep. Will Brownsberger is giving us an update on the budget picture at the State level and, of intense interest to those here, the local aid picture for the Town of Homes. Long and...
Just a note that the Belmont PTA/PTO will be screening Race To Nowhere: The Dark Side of America’s Achievement Culture tomorrow evening (Thursday) at the Belmont Studio Cinema, with half the price of admission donated to Belmont’s Public Schools.PTO/PTA’s! The film takes on the “culture of hollow achievement and pressure to perform that has...
We’re back at Belmont Town meeting and waiting to get going here. This should be an abbreviated meeting, with just three articles to consider: the vote on the Community Preservation Act (Article 21) that the Town approved in November. The other articles, #24 and 25 consider a request from Angelo the Board of Selectmen...
The question for those of you who are planning to attend tonight's meeting of the Board of Selectmen should be "what has changed" for Belmont since last Spring, when both Selectman Jones and Paolillo ardently supported passage of an Override. If the town needed it in June, why is it suddenly unworthy in January...
The Belmont Citizen Herald wrote up a story on a presentation I did for the Board of Selectmen this week on introducing smart parking meters around the commuter rail station. The BOS think its a great idea and want to move to a pilot. No Freeloader thinks its a terrible idea and that I'm...
What are the long term impacts of the cuts we're making now in public education?The Cassandras in the board room and executive offices are already telling us: warning that the U.S. education system is failing the country and that presages a loss of U.S. competitiveness and future generations with fewer economic opportunities.
Nobody was smiling at last night's Warrant Committee meeting, least so the scores of concerned parents worried about cuts to music, art and foreign language instruction, who were told by Board of Selectmen Chair (and candidate) Ralph Jones that the School Administration and School Committee were lying to them, hiding money, and favoring grown...
