BloggingBelmont (B2): Bring us up to date on the Uplands issue. As I understand it, there’s been progress on the uplands in terms of obtaining state funding to help Belmont purchase the property (which is currently slated for development under Massachusetts’ 40(b) “anti snob” zoning law.

Will Brownsberger (WB): One (House of Representatives) committee has taken favorable action. The full House has yet to act and we don’t know what the House will do, because things can change. Then, of course, the (state) Senate has to act and agree. Even if the bill is passed and goes to the Governor without substantial changes, all it does is authorize the Governor to borrow for (the purchase of the Uplands). It doesn’t force him to. Often in cases like this when the administration doesn’t support something, they simply don’t do it. So what the (Patrick) administration decides to do is a wild card here, as well.

B2: When do you think we’ll see resolution one way or another on this?

WB: I honestly dont know. I think we’ll see the environmental bond bill move forward in this legislative session. I think its likely they’ll put it in this session unless the economy turns even further south. Right now we’re working in the frame of revenue estimates for next year and expenses for next year that were developed in mid December, but economists have changed their forecasts in the last few weeks. But I think the environmental bond bill has a lot of support. I think it has a lot of opportunity to make it into the endzone in this legislative session.

B2: Just playing devil’s advocate: what do you say about people who say that the town has a small tax base and that we are developing Not in My Back Yard reputation, in which no development will be good enough for Belmont?

WB: I think we can show the skeptics that we can develop affordable housing and want to develop affordable housing. Because we do. There are a lot of people in town who have worked very hard to develop affordable housing. I know. Under my leadership on the board of Selectmen, we set up a wonderful housing trust which I supported the creation of and we put a lot of people on there. We’ve got one of the strongest affordable housing bylaws in the state which requires any development to have 25% affordable housing. We’ve upzoned Cushing Square to the point that it will add around 200 units that will be 25% affordable. This development will be only 20% affordable.

Right now there are locations on Pleasant Street that cry out for housing development or development at a minimum that could include housing. So I think we need to do that. I take the point. I think, yeah, we could do affordable housing. Belmont can and should do better. But, to be fair, it s not easy to build affordable housing in Belmont. Also, Belmont has much more middle income housing than most west suburban communities. The slim majority of units in Belmont are in multi family homes. Its not the same as Weston and Wellesley and other towns that look better than us when measured by the one yard stick of percentage of affordable units. So I think Belmont is doing quite well in terms of affordable housing.

Regardless of that or in spite that concern, (the Uplands) is worth saving and preserving. It’s a special spot. Connecting it with the reservation. Creating some pedestrian accessibility. Some nice pathways. You can go over public land from the Winn Brook neighborhood and in 10 minutes be in the middle of a forest. This is also very accessible to pubic housing in Alewife and Cambridge. Its a piece of wildness that could be a special place for kids in Arlington, Belmont, Cambridge and the region for the future. And I think that’s worth doing. If we’re successful, people will look back and say ‘Yeah, you guys did the right thing.’

B2: Should the residents of Belmont look forward or expect more assistance from the state with fast growing costs like special ed, No Child Left Behind, or Chapter 70, which I know you’ve been involved with, to help offset some of the rising costs the town is facing?

WB: Absolutely. and as know, working hard on that. We got a substantial increase in Chapter 70 this year. Nineteen percent, which is faster growth than the overall budget. So the state contribution increase is substantial. The Lottery contribution is flat. Overall the state aid is going up faster than expenses in this particular year. And its likely to continue that way for the next year or two. But overall these increases are small relative to the size of the entire budget.

The other thing to keep in mind as a political reality and economic reality is that state is under great financial pressure. Belmont faces pressure from health care costs. But with Medicaid, health care is a much larger part of the state budget. So there are a whole lot of things not getting done at the state level as well. And this brings me back to the larger economic context that we’re in. A lot of people feel financial pressure and don’t feel like they can afford increased property taxes for a town or income taxes for a state. As a result, government is under a lot of presure. And that means we have to be interested in anything we can do to do things differently.

B2: On to a couple other housekeeping items. The debt exclusion for the Wellington School. What is your sense of where we stand with the state on that? It sounds as if there’s something of a new process the state has introduced for getting these things approved.

WB: well it is a new process and I attended the first meeting between the new authority and the town’s school officials that has occurred subsequent to the state’s decision. The state has made a decision to move forward with something for Wellington’s school, but is not committed to what it is. Maybe it will be the reconstruction the town wants to do. Maybe it will be something different. But I went away from that meeting very encouraged. I think the town building committee and school committee showed great command of the situation and impressed the state that we’re on the right path. So i’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll see the approval we want in 2008.

B2: The great political debate right now in town over money for the roads versus the schools. Where do you come down?

WB: Well, you do need both. How you package both is one of those complicated choices that get made at the margins. There are a lot of ways to skin that cat. I’m someone who believes that you can differentiate among roads as priorities. I think that high traffic roads are a high priority. Lower traffic roads like Stella Road –its not a priority that people be able drive 40 mph on these roads. In fact, we’d prefer it if they didn’t. Hopefully the Board of Selectmen will think about priorities in terms of what roads to do. Hopefully they’ll find a way to add high priority roads and schools and other critical town services.

B2: The town is looking for money to set up a building committee for a new library. Our name is floating up there on the list somewhere for matching funds for that. First of all, do you think the state is going to be in position to continue funding library construction as it has for the last decade and a half? And what should the town do to make sure it gets its hat in the ring for matching funds?

WB: There are two parts to that question. Administratively, in terms of dealing with the bureaucracy, I think the library trustees have done a good job with that to be in a position to move forward.

Legislatively, there needs to be a vote to authorize bonding to fund the state’s contribution to those projects. Thats’ moving forward. I recently testified in favor of that. It’s part of a catch all general government-type bond bill. That hat has been heard and is likely to move forward. I have not heard that the state is reexamining library construction. As a state rep, my job is to create options for the community, so i get to say ‘yes.’ As a Selectmen, I felt the library needed to come behind some other prioriites and was pretty clear about that.

B2: We’re hearing a lot about bond market in turmoil. Will that be an issue for Belmont when it is looking to get money for the Wellington or other capital projects?

WB: I don’t think it will be an issue for Belmont, no. We have a AAA credit rating. That means we don’t need complex enhancements of our credit to make bonds marketable. We continue to have a AAA tax base and financial management, so I think our paper will remain desirable in this market. I say that not as an expert, and I’m open to correction, but my sense is that not going to be a problem.

B2: You served on the Board of Selectmen for many years.

WB: Nine years.

B2: Ralph Jones now the only candidate to take Paul Solomon’s position. Your thoughts? You know Ralph very well.

WB: Sure. You know. Ralph is very well qualified. You have a good board. You have people who are all very serious about the town’s future and have a good deal of expertise about how the town works. So I think the town is in good hands now.

For this latest In the Mix, BloggingBelmont sat down with State Rep. Will Brownsberger, a longtime town resident and former Selectman who now represents Belmont and parts of Arlington and Cambridge. This is the first in a three part posting of excerpts from our interview with Will. You can listen to it by clicking here, or via the VodPod sidebar on the B2 home page, by clicking the image of Will. A note: the sound quality of this is poor — I basically recorded it on my laptop. I’m upgrading my kit and will soon be offering higher quality podcasts and video podcasts for B2. You’ll have to bear with me for this one, however.

Past In the Mix interviews include Selectman Angelo Firenze, and Belmont Food Pantry head Patricia Mihelich.

Here are some excerpts from part 1 of the interview with Will…

BloggingBelmont (B2): How has the adjustment to life on Beacon Hill been? What have you learned?

Will Brownsberger (WB): I’ve learned a lot about a lot of different issues. there’s a whole flow of information there that allows you to develop a broader perspective. I’ve been pleased with the cooperation I’ve gotten from my colleagues on the hill. Its a good time to be there.

B2: It’s interesting when you look at the issues that dominated in the (2006) camapaign with Mrs. (Libby) Firenze. There was a lot of talk about gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research and it seems like in the year since, a lot of other issues have moved in. What do you see as the biggest challenges facing us now at the state level and local level?

WB: From a big picture we, I think, face a tough environment. over the next couple decades. The influence of automation and the influence of much broader international competition than the whole U.S. economy has faced for 50 or 100 years may change our standard of living for the worse. At the very least it will keep people under pressure to keep changing and keep adapting. I think you see that now. A lot of people feel financial pressure.

B2: Do you see a willingness in the Patrick administration an awarness at the state level of those challenges and a willingness to face those challenges in a way that’s innovative?

WB: I see in the legislature and the administration a strong awarness of hte challenges we face. I’d couple those with environmental and resource challenges which I think both work to make a tough situation a bit worse. I don’t think there are any magic bullets in this. It’s trying to do a lot of things right –deal with energy costs and conservation. Deal with affordable housing. Deal with the education system. Look at how we receive businesses into the state. Do what we can to support bright light businesses like the life sciences. There’s a lot of awareness and consensus on the multiple dimensions we’re trying to do things right on.

B2: You’ve lived in Belmont for 15 years. In that time, and you were very involved with town politics before you ran for statewide office. What has endured about Belmont as a community and what has changed?

WB: I think we’ve made a lot of progress over the last 10 years. We’ve opened Belmont to restaurants which has made a big difference with the liquor licensing. We’ve gotten in focus the capital needs of the town and made a sustained effort to address those. The senior center, the track the town hall, fire stations. We’re working now on the wellington school. so a lot of that has been addressed. We’ve also done a lot to enliven the business centers in our town. the rezoning of the Cushing Square was very significant and is likely in the next year or two to pay off with some positive redevelopment in that area. The same thing is happening in Belmont Center, though its not as far along. There’s a committee looking at that. But somet things haven’t changed. We’re a fully built town. We are a town that is overwhelmingly residential and as a result we have relatively high taxes and that creates a continuing pressure on our operating budget that we can’t raise it to a level that people feel comfortable with so there’s continuing concern with the quality of the schools. What hasn’t changed is that we still have a very good school system and I think that’s something that is partly due to the parents and kids in the system, who just create a positive environment for education in Belmont despite the fact that we spend less than the average community on education.

B2: When you look at the level up from that in the last 15 years, are the macroeconomic conditions tougher for a town like Belmont, which doesn’t have a diversified tax base? Has the environment changed in a way that will force Belmont to change or is the way the town has functioned in the last 40 years going to continue in the next 30 or 40 years?

WB: You ask a deep question and I’m not sure what the answer is. I think we need to be open, across all government to be open to rethinking how we do what we do. Industry is changing and restructuring rapidly. Services are restructuring rapidly. What happens in offices changing rapidly as a result of automation and competition. We can’t sit still. Government can’t be an island that does not change. That’s why I’m interested in educational information technology. I think in the next few decades its likely that the way we deliver education, which is over 1/2 of our budget, will change substantially to include components of online education. There may be some ways that are superior and others that are inferior. Right now online education does not offer a cost advantage. But within the next few decades, a cost advantage will open up that allow for greater use of technology in education. There will always be a teacher and you will always need to have activities that bring kids together in a school context, but I think things are goiong to change in interesting ways.

B2: What about on the town side of things with technology?

WB: On the town side, its not as much about technology because most of the town budget is not paper pushing. You know–its people on the street doing work: fire, police, highway department and so on. You have some places like the Treasurer’s office where technology has and will make a difference. But I think the big question is the regionalization question.

B2: And to clarify, you mean working with neighboring towns to combine services like fire, police, schools, and purchasing.

WB: That’s been the way its been framed, but many of the really great opportunities for economies of scale have already been addressed. One of the biggest is the mutual aid fire system, meaning not every community needs to staff up to fight the biggest fires. That’s huge. So people say that we need to regionalize fire. Well it is regionalized already to a great degree. I mean, if you had a totally rationalized system you might draw the boundaries a bit differently between fire stations, but i don’t know how the regionalization thing moves forward. I’m inclined to think it involves much bigger aggregations or collaborations — maybe a metropolitan fire fighting force. These are things that are out there in the long term but there are big political barriers to doing all those things.

Next: an Uplands status update, Wellington and roads vs. schools…