hello everyone welcome to did it today today's edition of community conversations i'm your host roger coulton today i have invited the two candidates for belmont's board of selectmen to join me we are recording separate half hour segments with each candidate the two candidates our guy carbonneau me and adam dash in this segment i'll be talking with guy carbone e the audio version of these podcasts will be available on the dhamma media center website belmont media dot org and a television version will be available not only on the website but will also be broadcast multiple times on the belmont media center t v stations guy welcome to community conversations and thank you for being willing to talk with me today on today sir well thank you for giving me the opportunity i really appreciate it especially because of everything you've just read into the rocket it's an opportunity to me the voters and let them know a little bit about my position so thank you very much for inviting me i guy before we really get into the meat of our conversation can you tell me a bit about yourself give me a minute and a half introduction on who you are different topics at the budget and when i say the budget i mean the operating budget capital expenditures town governance and the environment we have a lot to cover so i would ask that you keep your answers brief and to the point as we often hear our town moderator tell us a town meeting if you have an extended answer give us the headline st and then and then you can elaborate on it i'll try that's great thanks let's start with the town budget account administrator david calle presented the town's preliminary budget for next year on february th and which time he indicated that the one hundred and ten million dollars request represents a three five percent increase over last year's budget i don't really want you to talk about the budget generally when i do want to ask you specifically is this not quite two years ago now might voters approved an override that allowed a property tax increase and that's i mean the override there were folks who said there was a substantial potential for financial savings endowments project can you tell me two things that have been implemented that you believe have generated saving since the override i think the work that's been done by the capital budget committee and the presentations they've made in the financial taskforce predicting what's going to happen i think that that has helped substantially i would like to say to the to the voters that about eighty percent of the budget is the public safety funding the pensions  the school department and public works i don't see how you're going to save a lot of money on those things i think we're going to have to resolve the fact that because this been so much deferral of the interns with regard to our public facilities i don't think we're going to be able to save a lot of money that's not quite the n c o looking for but that's my feeling in the interest of full disclosure i think the voters ought to know that this business of deferred maintenance etc etc which is one of the reasons by the way i'm running for selection because of all the background that i have and i've reached a point in my life where i want to give back to the town so i'm retiring from my law practice and i intend to be more or less full time selectman so i can spend my efforts in that regard so i'm sure that's not exactly the answer you're looking for but it is an answer to the fact that we're going to be spending money especially with the new high school the four options the two of them really you can disposable pretty quickly so i don't see wh you can really save a lot of money with regard to the override it was some of the money was spent for the roads and that sort of thing i know that but it was a wise choice and it was made it was a bit of pill for the voters to swallow because it was a lot of money but it was wise devoted when they voted it so there's my answer i there are places that you would seek to to cut expenditures or just let me not put it in i'm a great champion of public school education when i look at the high school and what's coming down the road to me two of those options they would study but we ought to get rid of them through that should remain is  share a same background so that's going to cost more money so we ask about where can we save some money it's hard to predict now i continued to worry about the roads in belmont the very serious disrepair and what the selectmen and public works have decided to do was just repave rather than rebuilt and when they reap did the project for belmont senate you saw that they completely rebuilt the road they went all the way down to the sub base and started again so when we talk about where you can save money let me say right now that i have great concern for the amount of money that the town raises by taxation there are tax liens on houses that people would be surprised to come to through this campaign come to learn that it's the most magnificent town and that i've ever seen the public gives of itself the amount of money that the public pool is it's own money and i'm talking for instance  of the foundation for belmont education i'm talking about the amount of money that bill known saving sansa puts in it what happened at the underwood pool and how the citizen stepped up and the sock up and all of th that goes on in belmont it makes be want to be a selectman even more to give most of my best for the town and i'd like to ask you one specific question i have bad expenditures in its two thousand and fifteen report to ten meeting the town's warrant committee reported that fire suppression constitutes nearly ninety percent of belmont's fire department budget in contrast out of the four thousand seven hundred incidents which the fire department responded to last year only two point four percent involved fires another one rd involved emergency response by ambulance another thirty percent involved non medical emergency response twenty percent involved life support transport given that information how do you respond to the notion that perhaps it it's time for belmont to move to a consolidated department of public safety rather than having separate fire and police departments thank you that's a good question my answer is no i went through this when i was a slut with watertown many years ago as you know i was a two term selectman in watertown men they perform an extremely important function they respond very quickly i am very proud of them so the answer is no i would not do that ok let's move away from the operating budget you mentioned the capital budget a couple of times let's i have a couple of questions about that the capital budget just last week the belmont library feasibility committee unanimously recommended a new building option to replace the existing half century old structure on concord ave the new building is projected to cost twenty three million four hundred thousand dollars if struction begins in two thousand and nineteen do you agree with this recommendation and if not which of the recommendations would you have adopted let me preface by saying that everything i am today is a result of my public school education and the number of hours i spent in the library at it in here in watertown when i was a youngster at mit the library is extremely important to me and listen this is important the program for the library has been updated and changed so nobly design a building we must design a building to include include the program not the other way around where you say let's build a building and then fit the program into it so the library trustees wisely and i went to the meeting i was there that night and i got up and i spoke about the fact that gives me i spoke about the fact that the water table where the president library is now was rather high and what i saw that night i did they i asked the question of the architect of you folks down in the subsurface explorations you know how much money you going to put into the foundation of this building and he told me no there was only one boring they took they have not done soil analysis under the building so i think that estimate is do to design to remove design and construct a new building we also got to provide for what's going to happen to the books and everything else while we demolished and rebuilt that's got to be built in all that having said i am a champion of a public library i saw the program that i saw that was presented i think is optimal for for belmont i do have a concern because i know now that the trustees of sort of deferred to the new high school so called so right now the focus is on whatever we're going to do with the high school and i told you about only two options that i believe should be considered from now on and the feasibility study is proceeding the school building assistance authority has accepted the location for funding and i think there are only two options let me say this is interesting i've talked about the library i've talked about the fact that we've got to look at the foundations if we build here there's a high water table know what's underneath the ground because the cost of the foundation of the building will talk about the same thing when we get to the incinerator is extremely important in the cost of the library i am a champion of a new library in belmont we've got to defer it for a bit because we got to talk about the high school when i was on the school committee i want to town years ago the architect to design you know present high school was cause i'm a mom and kwan they came to us to be a lot of town and told us about the design they had just finished in belmont they want to do the same thing in watertown i opposed a brand new high school in watertown because we didn't have a place to put it so the project that you see in watertown today the high school that's my plan that i proposed years ago now when those architects came i remember asking them you know a building you built on a dump did you do anything with soil exploration did you cap it what did you do to my recollection is that the architects told me yes we took care of that we kept  don't worry about what's on the site that's my recollection i don't know what really happened so that is my answer ok and when we talk about the library the high school we had the yard and the police station on to that list we've unquestionably have buildings that need to be replaced serve renovated and that's going to cost a lot of money on the other hand we have  often who are senior citizens who have lived here their entire life who simply cannot afford to pay the increased tax no associated with replacing those buildings and as a member of the board to slack then you're going to be right in the middle of trying to reconcile what seems to me to be irreconcilable situations where what do you do i'm very concerned about what the elderly folks in belmont to paying for real estate taxes i know that i'm aware of it but the engineer in me says the nod to solve a problem we've got to look for an optimal solution that solution not only involves the program at the high school but who's going to pay for it where's the money going to come from when we start adding up all these capital projects and we look at somewhere around eighty four million dollars a year being raised by taxes right it's not enough it's not going to reach  we've got to spread things out and this is the the financial taskforce they've got to help us with this thing i have my own ideas but i'm one selectman and two others and people have got to understand that in belmont the power resides in the town meeting not in the board of selectmen when i'm selected and i'm going to propose to my colleagues that we meet every week in belmont you can no longer be part time selectman there's just too much going on there was shot of fifty committees that report to the selectmen therefore the selectmen have got to be full time more than today i'm not saying i'm going to spend at least twenty four hours a week in the selections office because i'm retiring from my law practice and i'm looking for that next challenge in my life and i just arrived at belmont when everything just fits is a convergence of what i would like to do and retire and so now with regard to the taxes let me come back to it  we have to keep in mind that and we're going to be careful here because some people are going to talk about development all right and to me belmont is a beautiful little gem of a town i like the cushing village but we've got to be careful here we start talking about development i don't want to change the character of belmont belmont as a neighborhood of communities we've done very well so far we have to explain to the elderly right that we in belmont now are going into another era and unfortunately it's going to cost money i am very concerned about the tax rate i will do everything i can right to make sure that the money is spent wisely the idea is to spend the money wisely not let me go back to the fire stations that would have cost many tens of one thousand dollars more there were nine different parties in that suit and said let's try to mediate a settlement and we met at the fire station and all the parties with there and i found the key to settle that case by doing so by using my experience and looking at what was in front of us asked bob asked chief rozelle they'll tell you it was guy carbone who found the key he saved us many tens of thousands of dollars and all the litigation now is selectman what i'm going to do is get into all of the stuff for instance let me talk a little bit about the you know like to pop it in my opinion in my opinion like department should be totally separate they should the commission should be elected they should have their own responsibility  i will propose this to my colleagues that the electric department be totally separate the commission be elected at the land you alexion and they'll be totally responsible for the  i'd like to come back to that the capital expenditures for a minute because we've talked about that the building if the need for new buildings on the one hand they d p w the police station the library that the high school recognizing when i say a new building for the high school we're talking not about a replacement of the high school but but renovation of lee's roger to renovate the present building with the new program i remember i said about the program let's look at the program that they need today at the high school i'm interested in three items in public education i'm interested in science i'm interested in the arts vocal lots music right and i'm interested in athletics those three big issues right the programs have changed today in the title nine women and boys in title to the same sports and so we got to talk about the program so please don't talk about renovating the present high school because the program won't fit into it ok so that the four buildings that he s projects on the other hand we knew have also talked about the need to have to redo the streets i think everybody agrees that the streets in belmont are in bad shape yes how do those two play against each other lines given a and finite amount of money well ok all the questions are great and it always comes back to money let me say this the voters a couple of years ago were asked for an override thirty four years ago just for the streets and it was close right but it was it did not pass if i had been selected at the time using what i know about building roads etc etc i think i could have convinced the taxpayers that look you got to fix the roads because especially where i live up in there i call that pot hill how shall i put it pothole paradise right the roads a very important especially when people drive at night in the rain when they can see the potholes etc etc it's dangerous so i think i can convince right the voters of delmon to spend more money to fix the roads i'm not talking just now about private ways but i have a i have a plan for that too but we can't get into all of that today the roads are extremely important the way you design them and build them right you can save money i do point out to you that there are prevailing wages that must be paid on public works i want to get into that so i hope i've answered your questions you have and let's change topics for a minute and  and moved to the environment in may of two thousand and sixteen the state's supreme judicial court the s j c ruled in the case cain v massachusetts department of environment environmental protection that the state had not done enough to meet the mandate of the state's two thousand and eight global warming solutions act the s j c justice cordy described the language of the global warming solutions act is unambiguous and said it requires the state to establish limits on multiple greenhouse gas emissions sources that must decline on an annual basis in light of this s j c decision since the board of selectmen currently i understand you said that you would do it differently but currently set says the board for bama lite would you what would you how would you react to the notion of imposing a clean energy mandate on delma let me that support let me talk a little bit about carbon footprints right let me talk about the greenhouse gases if you believe what the state says and not the p a but i'm going to talk about carbon monoxide for a minute ok i'm going to talk about the community path and then i'm going to answer your question we have to do more in belmont right to prevent carbon dioxide from getting into the air especially in belmont sunnah where everybody queues up at the bridge in rush hour was to me greenhouse gases they hold issues extremely important now having the new substation right the blip on stub station and what's happening right we will not that we had producing that much here there are two types of carbon footprints there's the direct one that you and i involved in when when  we cook when we drive our cars and that sort of thing and then there's the indirect one in producing the electricity if you will ever saw us now we will get our energy from this the source station alewife it comes to the blast station then it'll go to the three substations the three substations will really be replaced it's going to take probably somewhere up of one billion five hundred and seventeen million dollars to decommission those stations as by we're going to take somewhere between four and five years that sort of thing now used talked about the electricity area of complying with judge cohen but that's part cody and i know bucket and he's an excellent judge he's retired i prefer to talk about gasoline emissions i don't think that the belmont electric light is really the issue to worry about when you're talking about greenhouse gases because we're buying the electricity wholesale from ever source i want to talk about c footprints carbon monoxide i want to talk about what you roger and i can do to reduce the carbon footprint here in belmont when we talk about the fact that the average household  massachusetts all right produces somewhere about fifty tonnes of common oxide equivalence every year and compared to the global average right which is only twenty percent of what we hear and massachusetts produced so i want to address what judge cordie had to say by talking about carbon emissions i want to talk about all the other things that are involved these  greenhouse gases but if you look at the at what produces carbon right us right if you look at petrol if you look at diesel fuel if you look at gasoline there the big the big violators if you will and because belmont has belmont center where everybody chews up at rush hour at the bridge right it's important that we look at the community path to go from belmont santa to el wife i don't want to make it by the way a commuter path i want to be a community path and there's a difference so i'm studying that it's very important i want the folks in belmont to know when you build something and all of the stuff that goes into building that building all produced an indirect carbon in print footprint ok i know all of that but again i want to make it clear to people that although we've got increase the tax base in belmont i'm not interested in high rise buildings in belmont i'm concerned about elderly housing in belmont i'm concerned about affordable housing in belmont but when you get into those things and you start building right keep in mind that that's indirect if you will all right carbon footprint now let me finish with this with pollution and air pollution i'm going down to the uplands and i looked at the design because i was worried about where's all the water going this coming from i was worried about i was not involved in design and nobody heard this but in this now i'm running for selectman i want to make sure that if there's one hundred year storm done at the  want to make sure that doesn't flood the the buildings themselves and it doesn't go up to the pond and spill over to the people who are in the area i check that design now when was the last time you had a nd selectmen say he went looked at the drawings and checked the design to make sure that the engine is took care of all of this i've done that i'm convinced right that it will work and i want the voters to know that this is the type of selectmen they'll be voting for i'm not going to leave it to beaver all right i'm going to be beaver i want to take care of these things and i've come to learn that belmont in what's happening is such a magnificent community i want to preserve it but i want to fix responsibility therefore i come back to the light department right there are too many people reporting to the selectmen the selectmen can not handle all this information they're on overload everything has to go through the town manager because of the the laws the number of people that can meet together the open meeting law i can have one selectman going to talk to mr kale and another one go because of two selectman get together it's an open meeting law it's got to have a meeting i see all of these things and i want to take care of them but back to the light apartment i think we should fix responsibility where there is an elected like department and they respond directly to the public and the issues that you want to talk about right should not come to the selectmen anymore because now we have the big system everything else it should go to an elected light upon it because i want the people in belmont to be empowered i want them to know what's going on and i want to fix responsibility and i would like to follow up with some of a couple of your comments that they sort of play into the last said god rest his soul i'm not that way what you hear from me right you can go to the bank with it because i'll do it there's a people out there think that i want to change the form of government in belmont i do not want to change the form of government what i want to change the accountability in belmont i want people to be accountable for their actions i want the voters to know this is a situation and i can we don't have time but i can get into the license the liquor license this is a situation where there was no accountability i know exactly what happened and there's no time today to discuss yes in the right and i don't know exactly what happened no let me say this folks i don't want to change the form of government and tell me what i want to do is fix accountability so the voters know exactly who it is that's making these decisions and not place the blame on somebody who had nothing to do with it and the clock can as has r that thirty minutes just stand by i do want to thank you very much for joining us today i've had a lot of fun talking with you this morning i know that you're busy with your day job you're busy with campaigning but thank you for coming to talk with us this morning thank you very much i hope i didn't sign like to the voters that they're which again you're drinking out of a fire hose when i'm trying to give them information that's i just want to give as much information as like in the brief time that you have a lo of to me thank you very much for the opportunity i have been speaking today with guy carbone e one of two candidates for belmont sport of selectmen in a special edition of community conversations i should note the guy's opponent adam dash is also appearing on an identical podcast you can access the conversations with both candidates through the belmont media centers website belmont mediate dot org today's conversations with board of selectmen candidates guy car boni and adam dash is a special edition of community conversations i will be back with you for our regular community conversations podcast next week i'm your community conversations host roger coulton thank you for l