we'd also at this time like to give you two upcoming events one is joey's pock which is thursday april tenth at the wellington school community room at seven p m and the other one is warren briefing for all of you who will become town meeting members and that will be at the beach street center at seven pm that will be sent to you and your package well tonight we alive and i would like to thank the belmont media and all the workers who are here volunteering for it and it will also be this program will be shown all during the week you can check the station for the times and then o b e and up until april f also be a debate coverage at the at the media center on thursday march twenty seventh at seven p m and it will be the school committee in the selection and that will be at the media center i would like at this time to present  hello and welcome good evening thank you all for coming i would like to outline the procedures and rules for this evening we will begin by asking all candidates for town meeting just right over there to walk up to the microphone on the floor please state your name address and your precinct and then walk onward as we say the order is by precinct starting with precinct one and ending with precinct eight after that we will proceed with town wide candidates and rules and procedures and addition to the candidates on the ballot there is a ballot question asking for debt exclusion to raise funds to replace underwood pool the belmont league of women voters has not studied this question therefore they do not have a position on this topic league member penny schaefer will provide basic information about the ballot question with the town meeting candidates please walk forward to the microphone on the floor and state your name street and precinct thank you very much you can begin jim williams seven glen road recent one event ten a seventy bow road precinct one rachel berger thirty three stella road racing to jennifer page fifteen stanley road precinct three party cohen twenty one dunbar and road racing great david paul stock twenty three  alper one ok avenue precinct six the mooney sixty oak avenue precinct six michael smith forty one week road precincts and three o two cross street precinct eight eleven hurley precinct eight ellen schreiber precinct eight forty nine thank you all very much  and we have invited all the town wide candidates who are running for office this year to attend first we're going to read the names off and then i'm going to invite the uncontested candidates to come up the order for this evening is as follows and will be uncontested candidate race moderator michael wood near one year treasurer floyd carmen three years  years unfortunately he is not here tonight board of cemetery commissioners alexander corbett three years and unfortunately he's not here tonight board of health donna sue david she is unable to come tonight members of the housing authority donald backer three years five years scuse me members of the school committee three years kevin conning ham and member of the school committee three and for the contested trustees of the public library trustee of the public library matthew j sullivan reelection for three years and unfortunately he's unable to come tonight he is ill trustees for the public library kathleen cole hand three years trustees for the public library gail s man three years there are two seats in the library public library trustees and the three candidates i now invite all candidates for town wide offices in uncontested races to come on stage and to sit in the chairs provided right over there you will each speak on the podium we will commence after i meet the presentation of the rules  k the purpose of this evening is to provide the voters with factual information about the candidates and this is best done in an atmosphere of civility the moderator that's me as we now will cut off any questions that appear to be of a personal attack each candidate who is running for either uncontested or contested office may speak for two minutes and then we will entertain questions of the candidate from the audience each candidate as one minute to answer each question in contested races all candidates for the office will be asked to respond to each question uncontested candidates will not make a closing statement contest to candidates will make a one minute closing statement as this clear for everyone league members libby atkins sitting in the front would you raise your hand libby just wave and mary dimming guess who's right there are in the front row and will be timing the presentations libby and mary please raise your hands what you've already done during the opening statements they will hold up a yellow sign when you have thirty seconds left to speak and a red sign when you have run out of time when the time is up the candidate should only finish a short sentence and then stop the audience is asked to hold their applause until all the candidates have made their presentation may we begin first with the uncontested and mike would mirror will be the first person to speak moderator for the last several years i have great faith and belief in the importance of town meeting it's the town's legislative body and as i've seen it become more active in over there in the recent years and i think it serves a very critical function or belmont in terms of betting and airing complicated issues the expertise of town meeting members coming together of questioning and ensuring that those who are presenting proposals complicated proposals important for the future of belmont that they have been properly vetted and aired before they're presented to town meeting and if not  further exploration and come back to town meeting so i thank you all town meeting members for their service as moderator i've made a concerted effort to improve the effectiveness of town meeting collaborating with others and it is a collaboration i work to ensure that materials are distributed sufficiently in advance the presentations are clear and focused that articles on amendments are organized with maximum clarity and that there be a full and fair debate but with discussions limited to the scope of the article and to give one example just this past week all of the key people involved have come together i chair the meeting board of selectmen the town clerk capital budget committee town treasurer and so forth and we come together early on in order to beacon to really prepare in detail or the may and june town meeting in that way with able to identify any problems that are that can service and address those in advance so that when town meeting begins down meaning members can have the benefit of preparation and work thank you and thank you for your support are there any questions now let's continue on to treasure carmen my name is floyd cam and i mean your outrage or like to take this minute thank the league for putting on this event and welcome all of the meeting members as well as the belmont vote as my wife and  within the past year we implemented people as tax bills and that's combination of real estate excise hopefully as the town grows younger these people it's tax bills will catch on more and more next ten years i worked very closely with the community preservation committee to implement policies and procedures to make that smooth running and integrate ran into the financial operation and finally community preservation and in your a fourteenth was appointed to the financial task force over the next three years the treasurer will successfully for me involved in financing many financial projects going from a potential d p w facility to maybe a high school are there any questions ok here's a question for you could you please come down and speak in the microphone and jennifer your precinct if you're in c did not offer that service when we were moving forward now let service provide us by savings immediately no but it is the town gets younger and younger residents want a plus bills they don't want the mailbox to split up  thank you are there any other questions thank you very much good evening i am don becker i want to thank the league those of you in attendance and those of you watching at home for the past ten years i have been honored to serve on the board of the belmont housing authority my interest in serving the needs of our residents goes back many years to when i worked at the boston college legal assistance bureau during law school advocating for and educating low income tenants about their rights and responsibilities our board continues to provide improved services delivery effective management in operations and decent safe and sanitary housing for our one hundred low income families and our one hundred fifty four elderly and disabled residents within the constraints of increasingly limited state funding we have accomplished a lot during the past year for our residents the roof replacements of waverly oaks and clarke lane are almost completed and we voted at our meeting just two hours ago to award a contract for the lowest bidder to replace the roof that sherman gardens we also hope to complete replacement of the front steps at sermon gardens and other property improvements at clark lane within the past year we have paid particular attention to the governor's proposal for the reform in consolidation of the state's two hundred forty housing authorities into regional authorities a compromise alternative to that proposal is now in the works it will provide a greater voice for housing authority tenants and more tenant services it will encourage economies of scale to improve housing authority operations and it will pursue the building of more public housing for elderly disabled and low income tenants i want to particularly thank on behalf of the board senator brown's berger and representative rogers for taking time out of their busy schedules to meet with us about these reform efforts and also for their efforts on behalf of our residents for adequate funding for our public housing so that we can not only maintain but also improve our housing stock we want to thank town meeting and the c p a committee for the funds the authority receive last here to replace underground wiring at belmont village and we hope our application is approved this year for funds to replace interior wiring at belmont village i appreciate your vote i will appreciate your vote on to next tuesday april first are there any questions from the audience thank you don  the next member of the school committee kevin cunningham would you please come up to the podium that evening my name is kevin cunningham and i'm running for reelection to the school committee first my thanks to the league of women voters for giving us this opportunity to reproduce and ourselves for the voting public you can watch us at the school committee meetings but it's great to be put public again for the purpose of getting up what we've been doing for the last several years three years ago you may recall i put myself forward for school committee with two main goals first i wanted to change the tone of the discourse second i wanted to have us engage in genuine long term planning it turns out these two issues were intertwined when people slip into rancor when they start wondering about motives of other people when there's an edge in the voice when they look for the silver bullet to come and rescue them it's a pretty sure sign that they're not working to solve the problem not necessarily because they don't want to but because they just don't have the data in front of them to deal with it and so they look at other things look at the people in front of them instead of the data to solve the problem so the solution was pretty clear at that time let's gather the data and start addressing the real problems by looking the facts square in the face so three years ago just after i was elected we created a finance subcommittee to review the administration's data and encourage even more transparency they were already pretty transparent but we are looking for even more we now regularly assess the budget in terms of the whole cost not merely the general fund cost i think you'll concur that the last three years of budgets have happily been free of the divisions that muddied previous years we also began the long process of getting ourselves ready for long term planning first we gave up the us versus them mentality that pitted the schools against the town or the school committee against the warrant committee or of the parents against the long suffering residen instead we adopted a whole town approach and took on ourselves the real role of risk and responsibility in solving the financial problems we faced we own the problem we didn't put it off we said the school committee is a participant in this and we took on took it on ourselves kevin thank you very much i hope that you'll support the team of school committee people running for reelection thank you thank you many questions in the audience  new bifocal so you have to bear with me while i try to get used to my classes good evening and thank you to the league of women voters for hosting this event my name is lori graham and i'm pleased to be here as a candidate for re election for the belmont school committee this be the third term for me and having run in both the post and unopposed elections the latter is certainly much easier however making the decision to run still took some reflection to ask myself why i want to continue on and another time the answer for me is the team school committees by definition our team is made up of individuals each with the same authority and each with a single vote exercising their duties by practice i have found that with this team of individuals this is a group that shares the work to contribute time energy and thoughtful deliberation to making the oftentimes difficult decisions as a team we have selected a new superintendent as a team we have worked to ensure that diverse views and opinions are brought to the table as a team with our partners in the school administration and staff we have created a shared vision defined goals for the system and work to achieve these as a team we have work collaboratively with the board of selectmen the town manager the war committee and the capital budget committee to identify the needs of the town and to strategize meeting these and when i first joined the school committee i had numerous people tell me that they thought that this was a thankless task and in the six years that i've been on the school committee i've heard this over and over again and i'm sure that my colleagues my former and current colleagues have heard the similar remarks it is hard work it calls for serious commitment and preparation it calls for effort and perseverance all these things are true but it is definitely not a thankless task it is important work and i welcome the opportunity to consider to be able to continue as a member of this team as we usher a new district leadership and face the challenges in front of us i would appreciate your vote on april first thank you very much  here one question in the audience yes precinct six i would like to hear from you what the school committee is doing about the issue of increased in rome and in the schools at all levels elementary middle and high school well that's certainly something that is foremost in front of us as we are dealing with not just the budget for this year but looking out to three in five years and as kevin was referencing we're doing long term planning we have currently we have some room in the schools what we don't have is the capacity to pay for teachers pretty soon we're going to run out of room so there has been last year there was an enrollment group that looked at class sizes there's also the superintendent this year in a moment taskforce that was looking at how we can address these issues we know that it's not something that can have that silver bullet that we're going to be able to address but we're certainly looking at it with current superintendent major topics of discussion with the new superintendent when he begins in july so we know it's important are there any other questions thank you  infant we thought well we'll have a new school or an improved school by the time she gets there and we do work hard to make it look clean i'm wondering it's prospect or the high school or expansion thank you for the past ten years we have put forth a statement of interest to the mass school building authority asking to have a renovation or at least get in the pipeline last year it was denied this year we're issuing another letter of interest and i believe that's april tenth so we have that in place and actually will be discussing it at the school committee meeting tomorrow night we're going out again asking for that and and have to wait and see what they say about whether we can renovate or whether they'll build a new one so it's in the pipeline we're still working on it thank you l kevin would you like to come back and answer that question also you thank you kevin i just will point out that although we've been putting forward the offer every every for the last ten years for the first eight years we had to check the rebuilding of the wellington was underway and i think the policy of the mass state building association wouldn't really permit them to support two projects at once so it wasn't as if our project wasn't worthy for ten years it's like i wasn't really even in the running even though we kept putting up there so now we're in a much better position to be  ahead thank you thank you kevin our next candidate school committee is a one year slot and it's lisa fiorini thank you ok i think i'll be brief i will add my thanks to the league of women voters and as a woman and a voter in belmont i appreciate all of the effort that goes into these events and thank you to those watching at home and those present today my name lisa fiore i am the mother of two children in the district i have a son who attends the generally in sixth grade matthew and a daughter tallia who's a fourth grader at wellington so my investment in this effort as a school committee member has some deep and powerful roots at home as well as in my professional life i was appointed to the school committee this past fall but i've had the privilege of working as a member of the team that laurie alluded to before and have been instantly immersed in the daily and weekly efforts of this body i've participated in the superintendent's search screening committee and as a member of the school committee throughout the interviews i've been a member of the curriculum and instruction subcommittee and have worked with assistant superintendent janice darrius i'm a superintendent and many many teachers and citizens in efforts around curriculum and instruction i did participate in the enrollment modeling group that chairperson graham alluded to looking at enrollment issues in the community and that was another cross community effort that was just so wonderful to participate in and really tapped into some areas that i knew nothing about so it's been very stimulating we're currently engaged in some contract negotiate so i'm getting a taste for what the teachers are experiencing in their roles and that's been very very illuminating as well as the administrators and other staff in the  community feel that this opportunity has provided me a wonderful perspective that really compliments my professional work i teach at lesley university early childhood and elementary education and currently the dean of faculty there so when we talk about issues in education we talk about hypotheticals and theoretical and now i'm getting to see what it's like from this side of the fence so to speak which has been really enriching and wonderful and i think i can bring a great perspective to the work so i'm steeped in this work in many different aspects of my life i think a wonderful byproduct of this experience has been meeting people who work in different offices across the community and i feel very privileged to be a part of a community that truly cares so much about its citizens of all ages and i welcome the opportunity to continue to serve the thank you very much is there any questions from the audience we have a question yes my name is ian todd precinct one am i correct in understanding that the menus for the school cafeterias are in part the person responsible for the food choices in the menus reporting to someone in a financial function and if so is that at odds with delivering the best most nutritious and healthy foods for our students well as a person who's been on the school committee for five months i really have no answer to your question as part of the committee e mails from interested citizens who are inquiring about the nutritional content of the students serve and i just met our chair of the health board of health but anyway so this is something that i care deeply about having two children in the district and i wish i could answer your question with some definitive information i would defer to people who've served on the couple school committee members about why it is ok because stranger was with how much time the teachers can spend owner daily basis 'd love to say anything's possible and i think what this speaks to is a pervasive issue in the educational climate now that's very near and dear to my heart and it comes down to the pressures that our government imposes on education in the public domain and so we all have a voice as taxpayers and voters in the community so i would encourage everyone to exercise that right i've heard student representatives and others come to school committee meetings in the high school talking about how little time they have to purchase their lunch and eat their lunch so this is a problem that's affecting everybody the short amount of time so i think short answer would be until we change the pressures that teachers are under to teach the curriculum that's also not always under their control and reaches far beyond our boundaries and then we're going to be faced with these types of issues so i would welcome some collaboration among different community bodies like the health board and so forth and maybe coordinate some systematic efforts to get our voice out there and contribute to the policy decisions that get made that affect all of our children thank you thank you you any other questions and i would like kevin coming him and lori graham to address talk question as well as our concerns for the children so i can't say anything particular about what's being talked about but i will say that in general the question of scheduling is an important issue to us and we are looking forward to addressing it in more detail over the coming  time for example the question even the consideration of that school start later for high schoolers because the research shows that that's different all these questions are open and we will we will be pursuing them to some degree  you know when we actually address it is a question mark but we are aware of these questions and we're going to look into them you i don't really have anything to add to that some of the functions though that have been raised are not really under the jurisdiction of the school committee the day to day running of the schools like when you're going to have lunch and how much time is there for lunch and whether you're going to be going taking fifteen minutes off of here or fifteen minutes off of there that's really determined by the administration in concert with the school committee but it's not something that we necessarily sit in vote on in response to the question about the lunches with everything in education there is a cost involved in something that you need to be paying attention to we have a very energetic and enthusiastic new food services coordinator who is following in the footsteps of paul brown who brought a lot of nutrition to the school district so it's all work in progress i mean there's always improvements that we can be making but we are constantly looking at that and looking to see what we can do to be improving the whole system for the students not just the academic setting so we'll keep that under advisement ok any other questions thank you all very much for coming back an intern this important question i want to thank the uncontested candidates and for their speaking and we can return to the audience thank you very much as soon as they step down we would like to invite the contested candidates for the trustees for the public library matthew sullivan again i will report unfortunately he is ill and cannot come tonight  he's a candidate for reelection for three years so would trustees for public library kathleen key and trustee for public library gail asked me in both running for three year terms with a please come to the floor we will begin with the candidates here at the library trustees there as i said three candidates two positions please come to the stage and sit at the table you go you each will be able to give a two minute talk by some questions and followed by a one minute closing to thank the league answering this event and everyone present and watching on t v taking the time to hear from me and it i've lived in belmont for most of my adult life i raised my two children here and they elmont public schools as a lifelong library user and avid or i care very much about the library public facility that serves every age demographic most of my passion for what libraries offer i have decided to run a library trustee as a trustee i would listen to and consider multiple points of and immerse myself bailable data better understand the options library facility and the services it like so many other belmont i would have loved the belmont have a new state of the art library so many works so very hard to make that happen the unfortunate reality that a new facility is not like the trust must balance balances associate directing a new building what could be done to improve the current structure we need a larger and more updated space to accommodate children's collection program at a welcoming venue on the date the many residents and visitors that attend the wonderful often musical pro programs  very offered i would work collaboratively the other trust all in tears and stakeholders who are all viable option for improving the current structure and programming by thirty year career as a business where i have proven myself to be a successful and pragmatic project manager and leader i served on the board of the belmont foundation for education for six years and as treasurer of the  and it's time for me to give back back to the community that we've lived and raised our children and they are evolving and they continue to change to meet the needs of the community that they serve many people plan with the community needs and wants from a twenty first century library the growth of e books digital information and collaborative exchange requires rethinking the current library structure programs and services let's work together to develop a strategic plan on this vision and equipped with this insight to consider what the building needs and options may be i feel strongly that we must first you now we will open it up to questions from the audience each candidate will be able to respond for one minute and the questions that are asked are asked to each candidate will be repeated we will start with a question from the hey i'm a royal thai a town meeting member from precinct six and my question is whether the candidates have any particular plans for collection development those names that more often than not when i need something from the library it's actually not involvement but someplace else and i find myself going to any number of other libraries in the system rather than the belmont library gale could you answer that i simply asked myself that man network and it's very easy actually to just bust a book or service whatever from any branch in the network and have what you need in a four to seven day period and if every library in the network where terry acquire everything that the community wanted it short money would go very far so i think you need to look at what we need the most but to use the network thank you very much are there any more questions in the audience yes judy mex when pretend meeting member precinct two and belmont library staff member  obviously has a lot of is dear to my heart and i just want to say that you both have my enthusiastic support i will be voting for you both april first but my question is just a general question i thought i'd throw out to you both what's top of your list or moving the library forward the belmont library forward and foreign provence and i just want to add before i leave  let's not give up the idea of a new life the state will go through another grant round probably and three four years and i hope the belmont  will get into the fray at that point so you know that not dead thank you for your question gayle would you please answer that first followed by counseling thank you judy i would say the top of my list is  is mostly learned right i think that you can't develop a plan or decide what either your programming or structure priorities are until you know what the data says and and or break all that  and statistics into something that would be viable for a town that has a lot of heating priorities i would always advocate for the library because i am ashmit about it but just say right now what my own personal priority would be i'm not sure that i you are there any other questions from the audience ok we will have a closing statement again unfortunately matthew sullivan who is up for reelection cannot be here because for one of those thank you thank you gayle would you please make your closing remarks it's clear from arse from some of the question that we all care about our library and in a perfect experience and work with the trust volunteer and all other interested in knowledge of what are viable options for improving our library and its programming i would be an advocate for the library to thank you all next we have the candidates for board of selectmen there are two candidates for one position with the two candidates are invited to come up and sit at the table and they will be speaking their opening remarks at the podium closing statement when we get to the questions we will switch back and forth and we will start with the order of the selectmen but you have to speak pretty closely into the mike thank you to the league of women voters and thanks also to all of you who are either attending tonight or who are watching on television belmont is a wonderful community i've lived in belmont for nearly thirty years now and my wife and the j and i have lived in the cushing square neighborhood or more than twenty years but recognizing that belmont is a wonderful community does not mean that we cannot also recognize that belmont has many serious problems that need to be fixed the biggest issue facing belmont today is this we simply must start planning for the long run both by improving the existing ways we do services in finding innovations that save money and improve the quality of service in belmont i have a track record of proactive creative problem solving that gets things done under my leadership we preserve the waverley square fire station we adopted the energy efficient building code we produced the first affordable housing  belmont in more than fifty years under my leadership we took steps to control storm water runoff and to prevent flooding in both the wind broke and in the waverly square neighborhoods we improve town meeting communications and we town meeting in order to make our meeting membership more available to households with children these innovations and arise because of my professional experience in my day job i work as both an economist and an attorney for state attorney general offices around the country or utility regulatory proceeding it's the purpose of that work is to deliver quality service at reasonable cost the same consumer pretty actions that i have fought for for the last thirty years for rate payers are the protections that belmont taxpayers need today as well reasonable service at a reasonable now monster next selectman should be a leader who finds creative solutions to the challenges that faced us and then owes through with those solutions to make sure they happen over the past fifteen years i have demonstrated time and again that i am that lead you very much i would ask for your vote on april first good evening i am sammy baghdadi i would like to thank the league of women voters and our audience for over forty five years my family has resided in belmont my parents re brothers and sister all still liv belmont with their families my wife for all up and i are raising our five children here are all the son is at brown university we have a son at belmont high two daughters at the chance and our youngest son is in kindergarden at the butler school to staining our excellent schools is a very important priority to me i graduated from belmont high school in one nine hundred eighty and received my bachelor's degree in economics from boston university and my law degree from cornell i am a practicing attorney licensed in massachusetts concentrating in business and real estate law i have long been involved in belmont community activities i have coached youth soccer and wrestling i am a town meeting member a warrant committee member and a member and past chair of the planning board under my leadership the planning board established a transparent and inclusive planning process to ensure that all community stakeholders can participate in our deliberations whether crafting new zoning bylaws or approving projects like cushing village and solar panels at the wellington we have made sure that all affected parties including you the residents are heard and that your concerns are taken into account i am running for selectman to maintain what we love about our town and to change what we don't we take pride in our excellent schools strong property values and quality of life however belmont also faces challenges we must find the means to revitalize our squares repair our streets and sidewalks renovate our high school and keep belmont a place where we can all afford to live i care about these core issues and i have the skills to move them forward i look forward to answering your questions thank you ok now we get into the questions we will have questions from the audience are there any well by a one minute response and see me you'll go first followed by roger and then we will switch to roger then sammy and so on and so forth question from the right place would you address the two gentlemen my name is adriana a town meeting member in precinct one you both are keen to provide leadership to belmont mr col n you have voted in every local election since nineteen ninety eight mr baghdadi you voted in only one third of the eighteen elections since  you have a one minute response yes i think participation in the local politics of a community and particularly voting are very important i have been an attorney since one nine hundred eighty seven and i have made it a point to give my time back to the community in many different ways i have served as president of the realestate bar association of massachusetts i served on that board for ten years i was on the board of delegates of or the house of delegates of the massachusetts bar association and i have volunteered and served on the board of the of the salvation army the greater boston board of the salvation army since  began by you have thirty seven i began my involvement in belmont approximately nine years ago when i became a member of that planning board and i think you will look if you look at my voting record that the third ok the thirty percent or whatever percentage you came from was probably skewed towards the last ten years or so i've been a belmont resident for forty five years so i can see why the numbers can look like they're not a lot but i assure you i you very much sammy we will move to roger in his response to the question thank you for that question i think voting is an important part of  is a way that residents of a community in munich eight with their government voting involves more in making selections about people at the top of the ticket if you will for the board of selectmen but as we have seen tonight voting involves making selections about meeting members about the board of assessors about our board of library trustees about some of the other offices that regularly affect be day to day operations of the community and directly affect you have thirty seconds left in directly affecting the day to day operations of the community it not only involves the delivery of services to the community but it also affects our town budget so in my thank you roger for your response we're going to the left side please and we will begin with roger thank you one minute responses i'm judith an eon sarno town meeting member precinct three both of you have made statements claiming to be resident advocate could each of you provide three specific examples where you have advocated for resident issues thank you one minute to respond we're going to start with roger please thank you being a resident advocate of course is one of the most important aspects of being a member of the board of selectmen  first and foremost is when i worked on the waverly square fire station and i not only found the grant you preserve and renovate the fire station but i wrote the grant for the town and i chaired the committee that brought together the residents of the media neighborhood with the business just break with the residents of the rest of the community so that we preserved and renovated the fire station secondly is that i was the fact that thirty second i was the founder and continue to be the administrator of belmont budget dot org which is the only mechanism available for residents of the community of belmont to on and ask questions about in an interactive way the town budget third is that for the last twelve years i have administered the belmont affordable shelter fun i received brand i receive  for graham thank you roger sammy would you would do would you like to have the question reiterated again  have made statements claiming to be resident advocates could each of you provide three specific examples where you've advocated for resident issues thank you ok thank you  demolition moratorium that was brought by the residents to the last annual town meeting as a member of the planning board i supported the residents and i've been very active in drafting amendments to the zoning by law to address resident concerns solar panels at the wellington relocation of the generator and trash dumpster at the wellington school i promoted resident concerns when we were approving pushing village noisy rooftop units and trash disposal at the wellington school i even met with businesses who were concerned about the opening of el centro restaurant you know pretty seconds i met with residents and met with the proposed restaurant owner and we were able to bridge their concerns and reach a result in all cases listening to and addressing resident concerns led to better projects and that's why that is so important to me thank you thank you next question on the right side police again you have one minute to respond and after the question sammy you will start first of all by roger yes my name is paul rector i'm a town meeting member from precinct eight  i believe that every experience if you're doing it right is a learning experience so i'm curious for each of you what have you learned in the experience of running in this camp i have learned that belmont has a population of very well educated and very engaged people as i have gone from door to door as i have gone from department head to department head and  spoken to them people really care about about belmont and people really care in this town and want what's best for this town it is part of what makes me proud to be a resident for forty five years and it is part of what makes me want to be involved in town government and i want to make sure that my children will have the opportunity to live here and raise their children in belmont as well you have thirty seconds i'm done ok roger would you like to answer that question please does that mean i get sammie's extra thirty seconds i do go ahead i've been knocking on hundreds of doors in the last  six to eight weeks i've talked to hundreds of residents on their doorsteps in all eight precincts and i think there are two things that have been particularly profound i would say number one is that i've learned that people are not merely upset about the streets and sidewalks in the town about mot people are not merely concerned people are angry about the streets and sidewalks and ahmed people feel betrayed by the condition of the streets and sidewalks and bama the second thing or a second thing that i've learned is that you have thirty seconds it is not possible to govern belmont as a person who has aman interests with everybody or common values with everybody there are too many we there are too many different classes in  many people that have too many different ideas in order to be an effective leader and belmont there is an absolute necessity thank you roger differences and on the left side  town meeting member from precinct six my question is for each candidate what is your opinion inserting the first time homebuyers assistance program under which the belmont housing trust is proposing to spend three hundred seventy five thousand dollars in c p a funds to assist two or three first time home buyers to purchase a house or a condominium in belmont ok roger you're going to answer this question first for one minute i do support that proposal for first time home buyer a first time home buyer program as people know or may know i was chair of the housing trust in belmont for almost ten years and i'm proud of the progress the belmont has made on affordable housing in belmont promoting affordable housing and supporting diversity is the right and just thing to do in belmont notwithstanding the fact that it's the right thing to do it's also the way that belmont goes after other objectives people may not know that the planning grant orchard pella road was actually paid for out of affordable housing and affordable housing program the executive order for eighteen program and the sixteen million dollars that  more seconds is sixteen million dollars the belmont received to reconstruct apollo road was a competitive grant proposal that would not have been competitive for without its progress on affordable housing most recently you may have read simply in last week thank you very much in sammy would you please respond to the question yes i support affordable housing under my leadership of the planning board rewrote the inclusionary housing by law after it was legally challenged by two developers and council upon and that it was just unenforceable because it was too extreme also the planning boards approval of cush generated or will generate twelve fordable housing units to reach our ten percent affordable housing units as required by chapter forty b belmont needs an additional six hundred twenty four affordable housing units  spend three hundred seventy five thousand dollars of c p a funds to add just two or three affordable units does not make any financial sense two or three year instead not insulate belmont from a chapter forty b e p a funds are still taxpayer dollars and this this to me does not seem to be the most efficient use of our funds in order to be exempt from the provisions of chapter forty belmont would have to add if you want affordable housing units and that would exempt us for one year to be exempt from forty b for two years we would have to add one hundred and one affordable housing units thank you very much sammy thank you thank you next question on the right my name is helen golding i'm a precinct by precinct one town meeting member we've heard a lot and i've certainly heard a lot in town meaning over the last several years about the various needs of the town that are not getting met capital needs and  expense need street schools what have you what i would like to know from both candidates is do you support an override which the selectmen are responsible for putting before the voters if it's to be voted on and if so for how much thank you sammy would you please answer this question this is followed by roger one minute response thank you yes i certainly afford maintaining the current services and the needs including the cap needs of right now the town as and has put together a financial taskforce that is looking at the financial challenges facing belmont at what projects we face prioritizing them revenue needs how revenues would be raised and what costs this the town can made and make i will certainly take the recommendations of that committee when deciding on whether belmont needs an override i am not against an override contrary to what people may think i am for what is best for belmont but the fact of the matter is belmont has become increasingly more expensive as a community i am for maintaining the services i am for our excellent schools and i will do what is best for this town and an override is on the table with me thank you next roger would you please answer that question i would need to think carefully before putting an override on the ballot of any amount but let's face it there there are three undeniable  undeniable facts about belmont today one is that our streets and roads are in terrible shape they are in desperate need of repair number two is that our schools are being challenged by increasing or neuroma and number three is that we've got buildings both old and new the energy cheerier rating faster than they should deteriorate because we don't have money to put into maintenance an override would be one of the tools in the tool box to address those challenges not thirty seconds in the tool box is certainly not the first tool that one takes out of the tool box but it's one of the tools in the tool box as a slacker than i would put the question of an override to the voters where it was intended to be and then my job as a member of the board of selectmen is to give the voters all the information they need thank you very much roger make a decision moving to the left side please would you ask your question and introduce yourself again we will start with at this point roger for one minute response followed by sammy good evening i'm barry game and an angry president i'd like to know if you're familiar with belmont's hole damage policy which is to deny every claim and hide behind some texas churns companies flawed interpretation of mass general laws chapter roger your first i'm going to chat channel my glen clancy here at glen clancy our office director of office of mena development that last spring's town meeting said that he lost sleep about people possibly asking him a question he didn't know the answer to and i am not familiar with that the pothole policy that you talked about however the question of our streets and roads is something that has to be taken care of in the pavement management report that was published by the town in two thousand and seven b and recommended creation thirty seconds of a dedicated fund that could be used for nothing other and street reconstruction and street repair and that that recommendation was never implemented as a member  selectmen i would support the creation of a dedicated fan for purposes of street construction reconstruction and repair into which we would place money that could be used for no purpose other than the repair sidewalks thank you very much sammy would you like to take a minute and answer that question placed i understand your frustration it sounds to me like you're being referred to an insurance company or your damage claim your car while while getting funds from an insurance company can be frustrating i think that the real solution to the problem is to prioritize the repair of our spirits and sidewalks if our streets if our streets and sidewalks were made a priority and were in fact prepared we wouldn't see so many claims several years ago meeting it pass an override and dedicated a certain amount i think one point one million a year towards the repair of thirty seconds i think that that just allocating that amount for repair of our streets is not giving the message that streets and sidewalks are a priority we need to put it at the top of the list we are known as a town of homes trees and potholes we have to change that thank you thank you thank you  to the right again would you please answer your question and we'll start with sammy thank you don becker precinct five mr baghdadi referred earlier to the solar panel project for the wellington school there is a consensus that that project has not gone well i would like to ask both candidates what is your view on this project first let me start by saying i am very much in support of solar energy i think what went wrong with the wellington school however was the process or the lack of a process from what i have observed the reason that solar panels has gone has not gone well at the school was it was because it was rushed and no prudent due diligence was performed when we get an installer who installed solar panels on the roof of that school that installer owns them for twenty years not the town and it's the installers obligation to maintain those panels and keep them in repair shame on us for not doing the due diligence for not doing a credit report on broadway electric before holding them out as the preferred installer the only one second only public forum i'm aware of on the installation of solar panels at the wellington was the site plan review held by the planning board and the planning board was strongly criticized by the installer and others for holding public hearings yet it was at the suggestion of a neighbor says i'm sorry you have to stop thank you thank you moving on to roger i  don't agree that there's a consensus that the solar panels and a project at the wellington has not gone well it has been a public procurement process i have read information where people have made comments about  wellington solar project but there was a request for proposals that was released the proposals that came back were reviewed by a a task force that included the director of finance for the public schools the town's attorney with the seconds the town's solar consultant myself as there of the co chair of the energy committee and by an individual who was formerly general counsel of ne you tell it he's to say that there was not due diligence is sports talk radio it is not a be an accurate representation of the process that occurred the process was roger but you we will now move to the left side please and roger you will be answering the first question followed by sammy thank you and a member of the belmont you know green alliance and where group of parents represent the green teams at all of the belmont public schools like to hear both of your thoughts on how it select the port our schools to be more sustainable and also how those initiatives could benefit the town as a whole thank you rajoy your first the belmont public schools are an ideal place to turn for sustainability issues and it can occur in a variety of ways that can and can occur dealing with water runoff such as the proposal in the work that i've been doing with director for the public schools it can occur in the recycling within the schools it can occur within the disposal of organic waste in the schools i have been working for the last couple of months with a task force of the metropolitan area players and sometimes sometimes decisions in learning best occurred without outside the borders of belmont and i have a history and a track record of working regionally to develop things such as sustainability programs or the public schools should be done it must be done it will be good for the environment it's good for the budget and it's good for our kids thank you say me would you answer that question please one minute response yes i support sustainable energy very much and i support conservation very much and what better place than with our children at schools i think it is so important that we each build wron to change habits and to bring those habits at home both things like encouraging biking instead of driving to school things like encouraging students to go home and tell their parents to turn the lights off half an hour earlier things like itching students how to install energy efficient faucets and shower heads and so less less water the second i think we and certainly the school can lead by example you know efforts that the school can take to show the children that you know we are dedicated to energy conservation here but i think we need to start with education and i think that is the largest way that this effort can payoff thank you very much town finances are clearly always an issue in belmont and the hard part about it is as i go around and i talk to people you know i hear more and more from our elderly and i hear more and more from our young families that belmont has become unaffordable because our taxes are so high what we need to do is we need to sit down we need to develop a financial plan we need to prioritize our capital needs and we need to start planning from now unfortunately we tend to be more reactive than proactive and tend to go from one emergency project to the next and another debt explosion piles on to the six already existing to that thirty seconds we have what we need to do is look at things cumulatively plan ahead as debt exclusions retire we're able to take on more projects to just keep the acting to emergencies is not sustainable thank you roger one minute response the town of down needs a long term financial plan we have to show people that we're using their tax dollars wisely we have to show people there were making expense reductions where those are possible have to show people there were diversifying revenue about three weeks ago people's natural gas the north shore natural gas the two utilities serving chicago filed a one hundred twenty five million dollars rate increase for the city of chicago the illinois attorney general's office ired me to help you tourney general represent the public in responding to that rating thirty seconds the issue of long term financial planning requires a certain amount of expertise on our board of directors on our board of selectmen i bring that expertise to the board of selectmen we have to have a long term financial plan and i have the expertise i don't need to say that but to help make it happen thank you very much on the left side thank you restore town meeting member precinct one it's a question to mr colton and i'm wondering in my it's a question to both oh i'm sorry ok but when you hear my question and i'll ask and you mentioned in your opening statement that you were married to a school committee member and i'm wondering whether or not you think that it's any conflicts of interest i guess i answer first actually roger does ok then followed by you i am married to and there's a and the j is a member of the belmont school committee and i have over the years in gauged in different aspects of town government our civic engagement and as always worked on school issues i work on such fascinating issues as warm water runoff and building codes i see no conflict of interest but really what i see is and what's important when i first started considering running for the board of selectmen i carried the seconds i contacted the state ethics commission and asked the state ethics commission whether there was a conflict of interest of having one spouse on the board of selectmen and the other spouse on will committee and state board of ethics said no there is no conflict of interest because the two boards are we autonomous are completely autonomous thank you sammi i do not have a wife on the school committee ok next question on the right side i'm catherine lind recent one running belmont is an incredibly complex business requiring expertise in many areas what expertise do you have that would complement the expertise we already find on our board of select thank you sammy would you answer that first one minute response yes i am a lawyer i licensed to practice in massachusetts i represent clients in massachusetts i am a transaction a lawyer i put deals together every day people come to me with problems and i sit with them i listen i share concerns with them and we find solutions to problems i see my role on the board of selectmen much the same way there is no attorney on the board of selectmen right now i will be the first attorney i'm an attorney licensed to practice in massachusetts i will listen to residents i will weigh their interests i will respect their opinions take those into account thirty seven and try to come up with moderate middle of the road to  will be the best for belmont and its welfare thank you roger would you respond to that question place the question of what i would add to the board of selectmen needs to be company often but i'm also a lawyer i'm an economic burden second i mean economic consultant i work for state attorney general offices i have spent the last thirty years of my life fighting for consumer protections for consumers and ratepayers to public utilities with the with the board of selectmen would mean is both my financial expertise and my expertise in moving projects from candidates have legal backgrounds which i think is very important for the town about going forward especially on the topic of development which is very near and dear to my heart as a resident of coaching square and i guess this question is mostly out of curiosity but because we're dealing in the state of massachusetts was wondering if we could find out how long each candidate has been a licensed practicing lawyer in the state of massachusetts thank you ok and if the response from sammy first one minute response please i have been a lawyer in massachusetts since one thousand nine hundred eighty seven and that's how long i have been practicing here but that would put me at about approximately twenty seven years i and my bar association membership is with the state of iowa when i came to massachusetts i went to work for the national consumer law center and i practice my practice unlike my opponents which is a local practice i practice is on a national basis and i do not maintain nor do i require for my practice a  massachusetts law license ok so i can eighty one or two different kinds of lawyers you can be licensed just in the state and you can be licensed nationally and just trying to understand  but when clarify a little more i think i'm just i'm curious when i work with the work i do is for state attorney general office and so there is rarely any question about the legal capability of the the offices for whom i work so by i would bar license is good whether i were whether i'm working in pennsylvania or maryland or massachusetts or new hampshire or ontario or when a peg or even the work that i did manage in in ireland people seek out the expertise that i provide rather and the locus of my bar license stop place on the right side please carolyn bishop precinct one i'm we're all in fully aware of the increased traffic around belmont and through belmont all hours no fault of our own and i'm wondering what as a selectman you might possibly do to help us with this issue beginning with roger traffic congestion african gesture and it's clearly a major issue in the town about and there are things we can do in belmont locally that will address a small part of that traffic congestion problem weekend and force our traffic laws for one thing we can possibly implement and traffic calming measures but the still lucian to address belmont's traffic problem by is outside of the reason belmont has traffic congestion as people jump off of route two because of congestion at the l one thirty second and along route two but belmont needs on its part of select someone like myself who has worked regionally metropolitan area planning council who just two weeks ago i was in talking to them about issues that will affect traffic congestion flooding development not only in cambridge but in belmont a finer solution outside of belmont egil a stop place sammy would you  question please one minute yes traffic is clearly a challenge but the more we encourage dense urban development in belmont the more our traffic needs are going to increase that is why i support our towns and school and our squares and centers order a commercial development that will provide needed services restaurants and retail to members of the town bring in positive tax revenues not overstrain our schools and also not generate as much traffic as as dense apartment units would techer the second attack and there is an environmental component to this i think we could compromise on a community path that will encourage people to buy rather than use cars often i think we should encourage people to use alternate modes of transportation so there can be an environmental component to this as well thank you next question on the left she live for my question has to do with whether you think the town needs to hire  does the town need to hire sammy would you please answer that question first one minute followed by roger short i think it's good to have a town planner on the planning board for example but it's also good to have a lawyer an economist builder a business person a commercial appraiser and an architect so i think membership on the planning board and have a planner and should should include a wide range of people that represent the community i met with glen clancy and jeffrey wheeler and i asked them the you need a planner in your staff and they said to me no we do not need a plan or a plan or that left belmont thirty seconds about a year ago was making between ninety to one hundred thousand dollars a year plus benefits if our director of community development does not need a plan or on staff i don't think a professional planner it partially deals with land use planning but it partially deals with financial planning the town's operands of plan there was adopted five years ago and an entire chapter and it devoted to long term financial planning for the community of belmont and those recommendations were not adopt what belmont has done in recent years is to fall into this rap of only responding to the belt my proposals of others one of the one of the results of that is entre pal around thirty seconds we've lost three local businesses  recent years we had the video plus store which was replaced by a bank we had here seafood which went out of business replaced by a bank in dunkin donuts we had good lobbies go out of business it was replaced by a bank now min become a not only a town of homes and potholes it's becoming a town a banked and  considering making modifications to that on the other hand if it does not pass what's your backup plan for saving the underwood pool since i don't think the state's going to give us too much more time in its current condition roger your first  you sammy and you each have one minute to respond let me be clear the areas you ways to vote next tuesday on the underwood pool yes or no i'm going to vote yes and i believe that the underwood is a situation where it's much easier to poke holes in a proposal then it is to develop the proposal with which to be again and i believe that the underwear will building committee has done a good job not only of soliciting public input but of responding to that public input both in the design of the pool in the house and in how it has tied the pool in to the next door park so that the pool but really be more thirty seconds the pool will really be more than simply a pool it will be a community gathering place the pool as proposed is a community facility that will be question thank you yes i strongly support and underwood pool i grew up in the one nine hundred seventy s biking and spending summer afternoons on that pool and i think it's an important community amenity however i've point two million is a lot of money i'm hearing a lot of questions every day on the design of the poll and the cost and the increase in the cost unfortunately the way our building development process works is it's this option or no option and that's unfortunate as a member of the board of selectmen i will try to find a way to give residents options when they are asking so many questions on a project like this so thirty seconds answer your question either it passes and most likely it look like a poor as you see it on the plans or if it doesn't passes if it doesn't pass then more than likely if i were on the board of selectmen i would not let the issue die i would engage in more community discussion and more design discussion more cost discussion and after the next town meeting a pool that the whole community thank you port ok on the left sammy you will answer this question first followed by roger yes go ahead if you can the mike my question is really about process i understand that often or  kicking decisions down the road i am not like that as an attorney i have to make decisions every day so i am prepared to bring that kind of proactiveness and decisiveness to the board of selectmen we don't like two to one decisions but you know what if it means moving things along and so be it it's better than letting things drag and parties getting frustrated and and not having the right result at the end my biggest frustration with the library was the process the poor library trustees for two years have been out there preparing plans and and meeting with with town committees and  very last minute they find out that they can't get the land if i'm on the board the decision making would be flip thank you roger would you please be sponsor that question i share your question i share your concern about process on board of select and people who have heard me speak about the board psych minute heard me refer to and as a job and what we're engaged in now it's not simply an election but it's a community job interview and you're deciding who to hire or being a member of the board of selectmen and when you hire that person you're hiring that person to make decisions you're hiring that person to provide an independent expertise to making decision thirty seconds the bigger process decision is simply the bigger process issue is whether we should have a three member board of slack and in my mind days day and age that makes no sense at all that there is no reason to us now that we would have the board of directors of our eighty five million dollar institution be in a situation where no two of them in talk to each other  next question on the right roger you will respond first followed by sammy and it's one minute again jonathan jacoby precinct eight you've both expressed support for affordable housing and mr beck already has laid out how far behind we affordable housing under my leadership of the housing trust the town of belmont built the first affordable housing units in belmont and fifty years we brought habitat for humanity to the town of belmont the comment that was previously made about forty b is not entirely accurate one of the important aspects of affordable housing in belmont and continuing to make progress toward affordable housing is not whether we reach the ten percent mark but it's whether we can continue to make progress it's the continuing to make progress which brought a six thirty six million dollars or repel road construction it was the lack damming ok we need six hundred twenty four affordable housing units because that is fi the requirement of chapter forty b i just don't see us getting there in the near term future however we do have an enforceable legally enforceable and workable inclusionary housing by law and we should continue to take advantage of that right now the other thing is if you look at waverly square where rents are between fourteen fifteen sixteen hundred a month thirteen hundred a month we have plenty of affordable housing in waverly square or in the six hundred twenty four needed to thirty seconds it took qualify is for credit under chapter forty and i've actually tried i've actually met with a representative and said to him why should a belmont why should a community like belmont with thousands of affordable housing units in waverly square not get credit for those unit just because there isn't a deed restriction on them the deed restrictions only for thirty years the thirty years expire as long as we are providing by versity we should get credit thank top question on the right here you will be answering this fall by roger paul roberts town meeting member precinct eight first i'd like to thank you both for running and for giving a voters a choice this year for the slackens office i know it's a lot of work to campaign both have busy lives but i would like to thank both of you for running i'd like to ask you both to expand on a question that was asked to you by the belmont citizen herald regarding school overcrowding the superintendent's enrollment modeling group has estimated that we're going to have an additional six hundred k through twelve students in belmont in the next five to ten years and maybe as soon as five years and i would like for both you to expand on your answers as to how belmont is going to accommodate six hundred additional students without either building a new school or expanding existing schools in particular mr baghdadi you mentioned the use of modular classrooms to accommodate additional students so if you could provide some details on where those modulars might be located given the space constraints at the elementary schools that exist today thank you ok sammy and that's one minute essays particular units were offered as a short term solution if we have immediate overcrowding because we have an additional two to three hundred students in one year we may be forced to rely on modular units longer term i think what we need to do is we need to renovate our high school once we renovate our high school we can increase the better base utilization we can expand the footprint if needed and and we can add additional capacity in the high school that could allow us to move eighth graders from the middle school to the high school and it will allow more room for children to go to the chandlery and are in the center and elementary we have two schools that could use a renovation and expansion daniel butler school and burbank school well there are options short of constructing a whole brand new elementary school which is i think what you're getting at thank you roger the issue of schools in general equally of class size is an issue that has repeatedly come up as i've knocked on doors as i indicated before i've knocked on hundreds of doors and talked to hundreds of residents a ll over manatee the last six to eight weeks and died reaching roads and particularly basing classroom size class size is at the top of the list you heard laurie in cabin a our financial house in order and our educational challenges are partially class sizes but it's partially the fact that we've lost librarians in our elementary schools our elementary music program is now if based program so a stop place ok the left side we have a question and i think it's a last question on the left side and are you'll be answering this question first party double dip but i been talking to a lot of young people i coach soccer and i'm on the board arlington belmont crew and one of the things we talk about  is the police in belmont who work very hard and have done a lot of wonderful things both directly for my family and for the community and one of the things we've been talking about is having community policing or police are on the street walking and are more accessible to people and more knowable and i'm wondering in your capacity as slackman how you might report that or what your thoughts on that might be roger you go first one minute community place in i'm not sure that we have the resources to provide community policing the peace i believe have moved toward more bicycling and i believe that that is a a good step forward thing about community policing is to be the word unity perhaps i've heard me talk before about how belmont is not simply a town it is a community and there is a lot wrapped up in that word community and part of what's wrapped up thirty seconds apart of what's wrapped up in that word community is that we watch out for each other without the need for government assistance so if we pursue be the community of belmont and supporting the community of belmont not merely the town of dominant then perhaps we wouldn't need to incur the financial obligations associated with community policing we see nine feet be seen by foot stop place sammy i think our police officers do a phenomenal job and i would strongly support them as a member of the board when you talk about community policing it is very nice to have an officer walking that the there is no deterrent better than that unfortunately i think our officers are so stretched that they just don't have the time for that but when you talk about  policing we we should all be police officers of our community and we should keep our eyes open and look at our neighbors backyards and their homes and make sure that there are no strangers in our  community and thirty seconds and that and that our community is safe that's very important to me as a father of five children last i will say i very much support adding returning the  resource resource officer for the high school because i think the population as large as the high school of students we do need some community policing in in that facility as well thank stop place we have another question on the right side and sammy you are and i answered first followed by roger again one minute thank you john robotham precinct two are next door neighbor town lexington as solved a lot of their financial problems by having a commercial tax rate it's more than double the residential tax rate if we did the same thing here in belmont i think it would have solved almost every single one of teeth problems and you know as far as i can tell there's aren't any empty commercial spaces in lexington like there are in belmont so i don't think it's hurting them in terms of their business friendly posture so if we're talking about a little more development how come and it doesn't go hand in hand with modest but sustained increases in the differential rate for commercial property owners sammy you can answer that question first of all by roger i have actually come up with that idea myself in the past and i've discussed it with the assessors the problem is our commercial base in belmont is only five percent of  our real estate tax revenues though any increase in the rate is really not going to have a lasting if ever a large impact number two number two we wan attract businesses and belmont we want to revitalize our center and squares and i think increasing taxes on on our businesses thirty second commercial rate could discourage that kind of a policy we are different than lexington lexington's a bigger community likes it and has a larger tax base like sink and have as office our indy you know unfortunately we're a town of homes ninety five percent homes thank you streets and fix our sidewalks and but teachers in our classrooms and even differential property tax rate which scares me about for cern's scares concerns me about the proposal that advanced is if you had a hole in the ground in coaching square for five years now thirty second has a differential tax rate we might have that hole in the ground a lot longer than five years that we've already experienced we've had an empty macy's store for more than a year if we had a differential tax rate you may be looking at far more than a year of an empty macy's store we need to address our financial problems through the long term financial plan that i've talked about that includes revenue enhancement expense reductions and the versification of revenue stop place we have one last question care liabilities and it's something that hasn't been mentioned tonight but i think the difference between those needs in future needs is that by agreement those funds have already been committed but not provided and i'm sure you know what i mean so i'm wondering can you tell us how big the problem is in where the cash flow is coming from to pay for the commitments that the town has made roger year on for that question first followed by sammy in one minute response thank you it is of course impossible talk about pensions and i would have been a minute and a belmont as a one hundred million dollar unfunded pension liability it has an unfunded health care liability opap liability of nearly two hundred million dollars that's currently incurred last that we don't have the money to pay three hundred million dollars i in the town because currently part time employees are already second incur or accrue the same obligation or benefits there full time employees do and the second thing is that i don't think the town has any moral obligation to provide post retirement health care benefits as somebody who might retire at the age of fifty five from the town of belmont to go to work for another employee dhamma do that rather than thank you and sammy would you please answer that question yes ok two issues first pensions as a member of the warr committee i know our current pension liability is seventy million dollars our plan is about forty five percent funded right now and we we are on course to have that fully funded by two thousand and twenty six twelve years engines are so important to our employees they sacrifice and they rely on that pension for retirement i would not wipe that out that can open other post employment benefits health care benefits upon retirement from the town that is about a two hundred million dollar liability thirty second we're never going to pay that off but what institute we did institute with lloyd and i was part of that is a member of the warrant committee is paying a small the minimum amount every year into that fund two hundred fifty thousand the show credit agencies that were taking it seriously were aware of the issue and were addressing it and that has been sufficient to maintain our aaa bond rating thank you we have one more question this is the last question of the evening for the selectmen go ahead and well s first to answer it i am mary bradley i'm from precinct three and my question is about the multiuse path assuming that the path the best identified is determined to be the one that goes along the b t a route would you be and the chanting residents the majority of the ending residents oppose it would you be willing and would you vote for the m p for the well to use path go along road would be on the easterly side along the backyards of the channing wrong road residence but i supported i'm in part not necessarily the community path advisory committee but it's determined by the liked and it could be determined by the community path advisory committee my understanding is they're not going to advise on one path and give you the pros and cons on multiple paths but if you determine as they like and if that is the best route would you be willing to put the route along the eastern lee side along where the residents live ok i i am a community unite or not a community divider so if we get the residents in the room and we address their concerns and they support the path going in that place yes i would support it as a as a select but if it's going to divide the community then i will find a way to unite us  is part of my training as an attorney there are fifty six families that are affected and we a community path should unite community not divided and i am certain there any second the community in belmont thank you roger would you answer that question please and that is the end of the questions from the book my first response is that i think it's inappropriate for the board of selectmen to make any comments or any prejudgments about the community path before the community path advisory committee makes its recommendation i think it's inappropriate to appoint a committee to study something and then just say well that was standing but study says i have made my decision i think that the role of the board of selectmen is to address burns of the neighbors and every article reasonable fashion and then to make a decision and my opponent and i have both said that the job of the board of slack to take  and need to do the job that you're going to hire a stu do but in addition to the center to brighten street location when i don't want for the town and belmont is i that's not fair that's not saying is me i have no objections to the way this evening is we are going to have closing statements see in baghdad he will be speaking first for one minute thank you transparency develop a collaborative decision making if i am privileged to serve as your next select and i will govern by these principles it has always been my priority that residents have a voice in the decision making process as a result i have a track record of bringing all sides together to craft practical realistic solutions with widespread community support among my priorities i will work proactively to sustain the excellence of our schools and address our most pressing capital needs including our roads and sidewalks as both a parent and a forty five year resident i deeply care about belmont and i will be heard on arkansas i will be honored to serve you the residents of this great town as your selectman i will continue to listen to be transparent and collaborative and to unite our community please vote for me sammy baghdadi on tuesday april first thank you roger one minute please thank you again to the league of women voters for sponsoring this event tonight and thank you again to all of you who are attending or who have watched on television tonight we all know that belmont is a wonderful place to live we also all know that we have real problems that we need to address and to solve no one can drive our streets and sidewalks today and say that things are ok no one can drive through cushing square and see the hole in the ground that has been there for five years and say that things are ok no one can see class sizes in our schools continue to increase and say there things are things are ok belmont today deserves a different kind of leadership now much deserves a leadership that seeks to innovate to work smarter and to plan more thoroughly or our communities future we simply cannot keep doing things the way we have been doing them and expect different outcomes is slackman you choose on april first to be a leader who has demonstrated up place a creative leadership thank you for your vote thank you both very much that it's you've done twenty three questions we are now moving on to the ballot question and edition to the candidate on the ballot there's a ballot question asking for a debt exclusion to raise funds to replace the underwood pool the belmont league of women voters has not studied this question therefore they do not have a position on this topic le will provide basic information about the ballot question after her presentation we will not entertain questions the league always tries to present both sides of any issue but in this case was an able to  fire any official spokesperson to speak in opposition to the question there is a political action committee registered with the town clerk in favor of the question but there is no committee registered opposition to the question at the end of her presentation ms shaffer will provide information on where you can find additional information both pro and con about the proposals pool and this ballot question shall we begin miss schaefer thank you very much and thank you to the belmont community for participating good evening while we get the lights turned now and so that you can see the slides i just want to remind you all that at the end of the ballot there is a bal question of requiring a yes or no answer the ballot question concerns the funding and thus the construction of a new pool complex to replace the current underwood  pool hopefully you could read the slides the first light here has the actual wording which is mandated by the state it reads shall the town of belmont be allowed to exempt from the provisions of proposition two and a half so called the amounts required to pay for the bonds are notes issued in order to design demolish and reconstruct the underwood pool facility on cottage street including the replacement of the swimming pool bath house builder house and associated site work remember it will be the town meetings job to vote whether or not the c p a follows which we'll talk about in a minute will actually get used for paying for part of this authority to raise taxes temporarily it is tied to a particular capital project when the capital project is paid off the tax increase goes away and override on the other hand i usually associated with increases in operating expenses because it increases the taxes and that year and every subsequent year forever or at least the authority to increase it doesn't necessarily increase the taxes but we all know what our experience has been slide three this one may be hard to see at the end i'm going to give you the the web addresses for the towns the underwood pool committees own their building committee website which has a much better or easier to read version this is the same slide however but just to remind you in case you haven't been following the new pool would be built on the side of the old pool there would be two pools  shallow i'm calling it a kiddie pool which would be separate from a pool that would be deeper and would have the diving board and the swimming lanes as i show you in the next slide these two pools however are actually smaller size than the current pool current regulations require a lot more oil it's and showers and we currently have though the plan is for there to be two bath houses one on the current bathhouse site and one on the opposite side there is also a filter house that currently exist there will be another filter house built on the same place as the current one except it will be higher and it will be somewhat larger those to filter house and one of the back houses or on the street side and there will be some changes to parking and landscaping the next next slide i'm going to step away from  dashed line indicate the current size of the underwood pool and you see the other two the two proposed pools superimposed on that now as you can see they are actually smaller than the current pool so even though we have to the proposals for two because they are more efficiently used they can be smaller how much is it going to cost the estimated price is five point two million dollars  town has already or the town meeting has already appropriated nearly three hundred thousand dollars this was at the last town meeting of c p a funds for design the proposal is for appropriation of another two million dollars worth of c p a funds to pay for a little over a little less than half of the total cost leaving two point nine million dollars to be covered by the dead exclusion that's what you're voting on on april first what would this mean treasurer tells us that they anticipate spent floating bonds for fifteen years that would result in a six dollar an eleven cent increase for every hundred thousand dollars of assessed value it's kind of late at night maybe you can't do the math fast enough but if you happen to have the average assessed home single family home which is one hundred eighty two thousand seven hundred dollars i think the slide says you would be paying forty three dollars a year in additional taxes if you had the five hundred thousand dollars a half billion dollar belmont home your taxes would go up about thirty dollars if you had the million dollar home in belmont of which there's a few you'd be paying something like sixty one dollars additional taxes to pay for the pool and every subsequent year as we work through the fifteen years the amount you pay goes down very slightly so that's what it would cost so what does it really mean if you approve the question and town meeting goes ahead and votes the c p a fund which i think is probably likely if the ballot question passes then the building committee would go ahead finalize the plan to do the construction they say that the construction will take place outside of the pool season so that we would have a pool operating this year of the old pool if it's not approved well what with the town do we are told the town would apply for a nother waiver to open another year whether we get the  think we've been told that the community preservation committee would withdraw their recommendation to spend c p a funds if there's no debt exclusion there's nothing to match the money with and it's possible th design process would restart we heard that from the from at least one of the selectmen both candidates tonight but we don't know how long that would take when that would happen what would happen so there's a lot of uncertainty associated with that more information there are lots of sites there are sources of more information the first two listed on this slide are the night of the underwood pool building committee one is they have a site a page on the talons website which has access to their materials it also lists all the committee members in case you want to contact them directly with questions they also have a facebook page other sources of information the  media has been covering the public hearings and they every broadcast and i think i'll continue to rebroadcast or you can get on demand broadcast of the public hearings and newspaper citizen herald both in the print version and the online version has had articles about the pool and has carried many letters pro and con about the project as and the belmont tony and and the patch also have  articles it's a complicated project and you're asked to be making a very serious choice and so the leader is you to spend some time thinking about this and checking these sources we are not it's late and we are not set up to have a debate night about this project but basically what i'm here to do is to make you all aware that you do have this important choice to make and to urge you to do it thank you all very much