belmont board of selectmen the candidates are incumbent and challenger jim williams i'd like to thank them for agreeing to take part of this hour of questions and answers and a debate where both men will be able to question each other on topics concerning the town of homes joining me this afternoon is someone i consider one of the best political observers in belmont a former selectman and town meeting member ms mahoney is currently the chair of the capital budget committee which sets the priorities and approval of capital but capital projects so here are the ground rules for this hour each can have a three minute opening remark then for about twenty five minutes and emory and myself will ask the candidates questions and which i have three minutes answer under this format there will be no response from the other candidate and i may also ask those candidates answering the questions to clarify an answer or expand on it the next twenty minutes then it will be an open form debate which the candidates will ask a question of their opponent and there will be a response and then each candidate will have a two minute closer in will have two minutes of closing remarks so let's get started election seem to be always about issues but we never want about the people behind them so i'm going to give you my barbara walters question to the both of you i'd like to start to ask you about where you guys are from i know andy is from new york city and you're from indiana  what how did growing up where you did influence you and you go first great thank you franklin growing up in new york city obviously exposed me to a tremendous diversity of population which was a very good thing everywhere i've gone since then i think that experience has helped it's also you know an experience where you grow up quickly you see a lot of things very young some of that's good some of that bad but all in all i think it it helped open my eyes to the rest of the world and i think in general that was a good thing so you know well i was one from clarksville india which was used to be george rogers clarks for rogers and clark i lived with i have a brother and sister when there are thirteen cousins in that we all grew up together we we had a until eighth grade i lived in clarksville then we moved indianapolis then we moved to chicago and then we ended up back in i ended up in bloomington indiana for college i think growing up there was heavily influenced by louisville kentucky which was right across the river and so we had a kind of a how would you address the list of outstanding capital projects and i would ask you to focus on film on high school the library the d p w and the police station i'm my first  writer my thinking of the capital projects is why i've been worried about the capital projects since i've been here and i i like the work that was done on the financial taskforce because i think that was the first time the list was made it was priced out and even the the debt service was also priced out and i think it's important that the town has a long term plan like that in order to  make sure that it can it can actually accomplish its plans in finance those plans the reason i was concerned about it is i see other financial obligations that are that are proceeding it need to be taken care of it and i was wondering how we could have one hundred thirty eight million in capital projects when we owe one hundred twenty five million on the unfunded pension fund and we're not we're not properly funding the  health care fund so there's competition for a lot of a lot of cash some of it obviously requires a debt exclusion so the voters will have a chance to vote on it but when i add those numbers up it totals six hundred million dollars and i'm wondering how a town with eighty million dollars in real estate tax revenues is going to do that ok so let me ask andy a question and that would be what is your position on the four point five million dollars over right that was recommended by the financial task force as you know i'm in favor of it i'm definitely voting  yes for the town on that in my opinion i was on obviously i voted to put it on the ballot i think it's important that our residents get to vote on it i will faithfully execute the will of the voters regardless how it comes out i think you know right now if you read the tea leaves it seems pretty close but i will work every way it happens but i think it's in my opinion i think it's essential to keep our schools strong i really feel that the capital component of it is important as well to add to the one point two million that we spend on roads and add to our sidewalks which many are concerned about so my position is yes i the over it ok all right let me follow on then indeed what that you what action would you take next week if the override were to fail the very first thing i would do is  call a meeting with david kale and the superintendent and maybe the school committee and to really now look at reassessing the budget line items and and looking very very carefully i know that there was a lot of discussion last night as you all recall on on growth revenue growth i think drilling down on that and really getting to perhaps a better consensus on what revenue growth will actually be as opposed to these projections which are all you know guesses and it's still a projection but i think we can get a little closer and identify and see if we can identify other sources of revenue i think that there might you know we need to piece together one point seven million dollars if we don't get this i think it's doable but it's not going to be without its major talent so let me ask you do you stand on the override i think the override is necessary  i think that the need to make the unfunded pension fund payment which will be six point three million dollars in two thousand and sixteen is really the cause of of the problem i would have preferred that the board of selectmen in the warrant committee had thought about the increase in this amortization say three years ago instead of waiting until we have a crisis  i i think there are different ways to solve these problems i'd like to see the pension fund refinanced i'd like to see the retirement fund contributed to starting in two thousand sixteen but absent once the overrides on the ballot there's not much you can do about it and i definitely think that the we don't want to have unnecessary cuts made to the school and as i understand it the budget shortfall is two point eight million not just one point seven so i am not sure what happens to the other one point one and there haven't been any there's nothing in the financial taskforce presentation that i've been able to figure out about additional cuts to make that budget hole so in other words the total shortfall in two thousand and sixteen is two point eight million not just one point seven but i don't think the problems at the department level i think the problems that the strategy level in that we need to refinance or restructure the pension fund payments because they're overwhelming the operating budget now i by by going through your approach we would not have the town would have would be able to basically pay for anything over a ten year period of time because we wouldn't have any debt capacity how do you respond to that well i two hundred so the idea that i'm trying to sell and couldn't get done through the town meeting or on the fiscal task force is  that it's not so much that you need to repay the pension funds we need to restructure it and i want to take it out of the operating budget because it those payments which escalate in balloon over the next thirteen years unless they're provided for they will they will overwhelm the operating budget so i want to i want to put it aside and refinance it i know that's not a popular municipal finance option but it's possible for belmont because we third also on the planning board as you know in the last fifteen years we've lost some really big opportunities for commercial growth that would have produced some additional revenue for the town do you have any ideas for enhancing commercial revenues as we go forward absolutely it's one of the biggest challenges that a town like belmont faces because of our low percentage of commercial first of all we're all built out it's not like we have a lot of open land that we can you know kind of target toward development but we do have some interesting development opportunities and we definitely need to look at a new overlay district bylaws for waverley for south pleasant street to create laws that will encourage the type of development that will help those areas and the town in general mix use development is great but there is you know south pleasant street  an example is a purely commercial district that's the only automotive commercial district in belmont only district that allows automotive uses and it could be an excellent lead developer in scale responsible and respectful development area that could really generate some serious commercial development to me no tax dollars for belmont the other place that i i think would be good to look at and that's burgeoning right now is bright and st i think brighton street has opportunities i think there's large property owners there that have parcels that could be you know that will come under development pressure eventually we need to go ahead of them we need to have the bylaws in place so that we can make sure that we get the type of commercial development and that we make it easy for these developers i was on the planet for for years believe me i see the missed opportunities and also by overregulating and oh overly prescribing wow we put a damper on development we need to very carefully untangle that so that we don't overburden these developers and they decide to throw their hands up and not do these projects there were some missed opportunities you're absolutely emery we had opportunities at mclean we had opportunities at the uplands we had many other opportunities and we're still sitting on a empty opportunity at cushing village that we hope will come through here but quite frankly these new areas that have a large parcel still that that are primed for commercial development we need to create overlay districts that will encourage that and i'm prepared to do that are you going to are is that something you can announce that you're going to do if you were absolutely if i'm re elected i'm going to be working with the planning board to look at overlay districts for these prime commercial development years now let me just let me just jump in right there you know we've we've seen attempts at development in the south pleasant street area and a limited number of people have been able to stop projects that many people would like to see especially the commercial landowners  there how do you how do you how do you compromise the needs between residents who have you know what they don't want to they don't want to be overdone with traffic and the commercial business owners who would like to see a new development are two things i think i don't think they're completely incompatible frankly i think that it's purely a matter of targeting and making the development fit the  site south pleasant street has interesting challenges the challenges there from a neighborhood perspective let's look at it from the residents first and then we'll go at it from the developers ok the residents mostly residents or crossed the tracks they're lower than the property than the subject property so any development there could be very very visible and threatening in terms of you know kind of over powering their vista of wellington hill which is what they're looking at mclean you know wellington  i think the commercial development there if you notice they know that they renovated the old shoe the old car dealer and it's actually very successful right now as a single story development i think that we can keep development there at two two and a half stories maybe three stories designed in a way where it's where it steps back so that it doesn't really perturbed the residents and where it can be very very nicely fitting into that new street pleasant street very nice new street with a lot of utilities in infrastructure there that we should be capitalizing on i think that's a prime opportunity i think we can do it now from the developers perspective obviously if you're a property owner there you're looking for highest and best use you're looking for you know as many square feet as you can manage i think we can the developers have learned that they don't need to maximise these parcels to make money i think we can work with the developers and the neighbors to come up with a south pleasant street strategy that is purely belmont and that's the key the key is we don't want to be porter square and we don't want to be you know not with no offense to them it's just that we're different really like i actually would like that because i've been watching you take notes over there so i'd like you to answer the same question do you have any ideas for enhancing commercial revenue for the town well first of all i'd like to say that i think property rights  run run through all of these discussions and on the revenue opportunities committee that chaired by floyd carmen there were as many opinions about how to develop various parcels as there were people on the on the on the committee so i think i figure a more or less government and more more commercial viewpoint i think that as i understand uplands came about because of the difficulties that the developer had getting a license for the commercial building on that site and if you drive down there it's it's one commercial building after another and then all of a sudden there's going to be two hundred ninety nine rental units now whether you can actually lay the blame for that on government at the time is another question but what actually happened as i understand it is that  by the time the permit was issued the commercial the the the value of of building a commercial building had disappeared and so then then we were left and he comes in the developer comes back with of for so i've also proposed that the town have a risk management function and this sounds a little bit off of the question but i think if the decision makers at that time as that had gone down there and seen one elephant one commercial elephant after another on that street and you know when you drive in there there's not much of any grass there's going to be traffic issues it was pure it was really clear that that was a great idea and then for some reason whatever the environmental reasons are the people who who oppose that development you have to think ok what else can the developer do if you if you don't give them a license to do something that kind of makes sense now i think from an environmental standpoint people could have organized they could have bought the property this is gets back to property rights so you can't tell somebody what to do with their property you know you can you know you can sell it you can plan it but but property rights are very important so i think if people wanted to take that out of commercial development the town the town should have bought it and if that couldn't be done then you have to think ok what else can he do if we don't give him the commercial license and the answer is forty b and that's what we got i'm can cerned about the wellington this is the also because we talked about that a lot in the revenue opportunities committee committee and if you if you go down to that site it's it would be a real problem if somebody put up a three story building and you have you have your house down here so complicated questions i think they should be driven by commercial considerations and that the town certainly should allow the zoning that's necessary to encourage it but i think property rights and the commercial value should should drive the show and is it too long how about for you ok the other thing i want to mention is that  the rate the real estate rate for commercial properties is the same as it is for residential so you know what i think that has to do with what the assassins have come in and said even if we drop the residential rate just by a few pennies it would cost it would then go directly to the commercial it would swap the commercial and you want you want to understand no you're becoming like candy crowley an about the schools and that has to do with the projection projection of eight hundred more children over the next ten years into the system is it time now to begin the discussion of a new school whether it's the elementary school or whether it's frankly i'm not sure about how much hard planning and i mean i feel look at the waves you know what we've experienced so far but if you look in the future it's going to take probably three to four maybe more years to fully feel the of up so we're going to see waves of kids over this you know maybe two or three years i would say that it's not clear yet whether those numbers that you know they're projecting some people say the uplands will only generate seventy five kids others say it will generate one hundred  twenty kids cushing village likewise there's discrepancies in those projections i think once we have better handle on how many kids are actually first of all coming in from those developments and then coming in from other for other reasons you know every year we get new kids to join our system not just in september either but in october and march and whenever we're so attractive because we're so good i think that we need to start planning start thinking about it but the real hard planning will be when we know better hard numbers right now we don't have those we only know what's happened in the past and even though that even though that's daunting right now we're able to handle it with an override in my opinion but  i think in the near future we're going to have to start thinking about a new elementary school really and location that's the biggest challenge the biggest challenge is where do you put it there are other you know development you know potential places that we could look to either building out on an existing site and expanding that's one also making it part of another parcel that we buy for example it's been talked about for years the whole hit in e you know cambridge plating site adjacent to the high school if we could acquire that that might be a place to consider but we've definitely need to start planning this i think emery's committee the capital projects i think the financial taskforce capital project component of that and i think the board of selectmen really need to start thinking about this with the help of the planning board and community development jim let me ask you the same  necessary i think that there is a cash flow in free cash that can be used to offset some of that i also think that you could for example what you would  do in a bank if you had trouble like that you would cut everybody's budget by one percent which would bring maybe eight hundred thousand to the bottom line so i don't think it's instrumental if if if it fails and again i think the people no not again i haven't said it yet the people who who are opposed to the override don't understand the town's financials in my opinion because the issue is not the schools the issue is the unfunded benefit funds that we have in that need to be serviced so i think we can find the money for one year i don't think we're going to have to make any cuts but next year if we don't do something look out because the problem just keeps getting worse year after year after year and those payments total a hundred twenty five million dollars over the next thirteen years and you can buy a high school you can buy a police station you can buy with with that cash so i think that has to be taken out of the budget i'm not worried about and i don't want to be candy crowley but i guess i would disagree that the the people who are opposing just from the ones i've listened to don't understand the finances i think they do i think they just have a different take from yours and i think they're they're looking for example salary compensation you know compensation packages in the school department and some of those things that are also driving this and you speak a little bit to the well i think reasonable people can disagree but i don't think people should come to the table three weeks before the election in advise the populace not to do something that the financial task force spent a year on that the board of selectmen recommended it it's it it's  exactly what i'm what i'm against it's so short term and so crisis oriented it's no way to run the railroad you can't run the rebeled like that i called both the chairman and the treasurer of the no committee and asked to speak to them i did get one call back but i did not have an opportunity to explain to them my concern about the impact of the unfunded pension obligation now people say that i'm a one zero you know one note candidate on that but you have to understand it's those payments that affect everything we do we're threatening the schools with with a budget cut because of one point seven million dollars shortfall that allocated to them it doesn't mean that it's their shortfall it means the shortfall is two point eight million and they get sixty percent of it and a lot of people don't understand that the pension fund is not even for the teachers the teachers are not even in the pension that's right and so i stand by my opinion i understand the finances of the of the town because i've read twenty thousand in your reports and isn't in it's an opaque document but i can read it and it's in that in about three days you can find out exactly where the where the problem points are and it's not in the school system it's not in the salaries it it's in the way the town has been managed financially long term we need a long term plan i can help do that good point andy yes let's let's take a different tactic here let's make this a little more a little lighter  what one thing in your background be it education work experience personality maybe a hobby do you think would make you a better it's like t went to i grew up in manhattan inner city kind of i went to catholic school for twelve years then went to city college of new york which is a public university in harlem  spent four years there in the school of architecture and then i was lucky enough to get accepted to several grad schools and i came up here and went to harvard that profile of education has drilled into me the kind of first of all the opportunity that this country offers immigrants as you know i wasn't born in this country and it's a huge you know honor to be here and to tell you the truth and i think the educational part is a big piece of that but it informs almost everything i do and i can't think of one thing where that is that isn't affected by my having had those kind of educational experiences well let me ask you jim you have a long service in corporate and corporate in corporate america and especially the banks tell me a little bit about how that experience helps you become a boob would help you become  well i found the banking industry later in life i was in my late twenty's and i had my undergraduate is from miami of ohio in political science and the reason i was which in other in other words or in other fields it's known as history and so i didn't find finance until i was twenty in my late late twenty's i went to business school at rutgers which is the state university of new york got an m b a and then started working for the big banks i was fortunate that i started out at citibank which at that time was a wonderful place to be with john reid and walter wriston and all those guys i called on major corporations for the first fifteen years then i did a rotation and credit and i really like credit and so i stayed in credit for twenty years but by that time i was working for foreign banking organizations and i changed once in the last twenty five years and that was from what is now u b s to what is now in the texas and i think in boston the investment side in the texas is known better but in new york it's the commercial side so what what was interesting for me was i wanted to understand how the world worked in it in i'm not claiming that i understand that but i wanted to better understanding of how stocks were valued for example i wanted to understand how you could decide whether somebody should borrow two hundred million or one hundred million you know how did that world work in rutgers gave me a great start but then the banks once you get into that system you begin to understand how it how it actually works the first credit agreement i ever read was so complicated i thought how could the who are these guys they're so brilliant and then you realize that they just sit around in the table like this and somebody says well i want this and i want that and so i think i think it's very interesting to understand how all that works i was embarrassed about two thousand and eight because the banking industry collapse but it wasn't people like me that collapsed it was basically academics who came into the investment banking world in tried to use their fizz physics applications in finance and that's that's a no no  the pricing fell apart so what did i learn and how does it help me i have a very good intuitive understanding of finance corporate finance i don't think there's any difference between personal finance corporate finance and municipal finance except personal depends on the job corporate depends on the widget and municipalities depend on the ability to tax so the most stable one should be the municipalities but you have to manage it long term you can't you can't manage it every year or you know one year at a time or five years at a time if you're making fifteen year commitment to your employees or fifteen your commitments on your capital budget you twice this is the second time i forgot to say ask the candidates for an opening remarks i think was i think it was with you and i feel like a double  oh the first question of ending well it all relates to long term planning when when you first became a board of selectmen and i don't mean this critically obligations and why why didn't the board of selectmen not so much specifically you although you were there why why didn't tell management address that ahead of time i fundamentally don't understand that because if we ran our branch that way in new york we have all been fired you know thank you very much if we had a crisis like this at our branch everybody would be gone and i'm not suggesting that i'm just saying right again it's ok and that's a good question we're not a bank there now are not and we fundamentally disagree about the crisis i definitely saw the same numbers you have but to tell you the truth i absolutely see the looming problem with pension and no pat but i fundamentally disagree with your solution i do not think and quite frankly neither do are some investment advisory firms are town treasurer the warrant committee the board of selectmen our state senator are state representative not to mention moody's our credit rating agency all of this agree with your approach why are you so insistent on that approach when i've spoken to every one of them just like you have they've all told you the same thing and yet you insist that you know better i have listened to them i think we have a aaa credit rating we have a level one school system we are not in crisis the state even the state the prim board the head of the in the state which is the pension reinvestment and investment management board says don't do this the state is beginning to work on this if you do this if you do a pension obligation bonds or any other funding technique like jim is mentioning you might preclude belmont from availing themselves of whatever the state comes up with it's not to say that it's not a good idea just not right now well  answer to that but first andy didn't answer my question no you know my question was why didn't we start doing something three years ago that's my question because all of the salient advice says against it even three years ago even three years ago we've been talking about this for way more than three years jen i know you came to town three years ago we've been at this for decades but but but but but  that your plan trumps the advice of all these other obviously intelligent experienced then qualified people in town that all seem to be seeing the same thing in the town and the state but you think your plan is better ok ok that's a fair question the other people that you mentioned could i ask are the seven a talking and the concern there has to do with will moody's downgrade the town if we don't address the long term reserve problems in their report it says that one of the things that they would downgrade for is if we don't address it so greg and i are ok we're exchanging  we have a dialogue mr gibson is in charge of the retirement board correct i have no problem with what they do not not at all and i assume if we gave him sixty million dollars more he would be just as happy to run that just as well if he runs the one in the money that he has now in fact last year they made if it were non two thousand and thirteen they made a fifteen percent return and if we had funded the pension fund with sixty million dollars the year before that would have been another nine million in the poke the way i see it linda i'm not going to be able to pronounce her name correctly but she's the actuary and so i mean i'm i'm sure she's good with numbers so my but she doesn't have my banking experience mr sullivan richard sullivan is our accountant and i've taken a lot of accounting courses i understand that in his opinion is dependent on town management and then they do their audit and so the issue of the report but he also is not a banking or a financial executive who can think about the liquidity of the town the debt capacity of the town or how to organize our budgets so that we that we don't end up in a crisis which i think the the threats that are made to the school system that's a crisis in my book i have a my daughter's in eighth grade at center and she's in i think it's a terrible name for them in the advanced math class it's called the compacted mess math class but  self west and he said gee don't worry you know moody's is not going to downgrade but what we would say in banking and he's a banker is we need more than your word on that you know because moody's said if we don't take care of this that's one thing that they could look at us to downgrade and moody's just put you mass on the on a negative outlook for pretty much not the same reason because they borrowed too much money and they don't have the cash flow to pay for it but moody's doesn't have a relationship with issuers anybody who knows moody's knows that moody's is there to issue their opinion they help make the markets and when if somebody stumbles and falls you get a downgrade your outlook changes and then you get a downgrade and then it's going to cost us a fortune to to fund these capital projects so what i don't understand i'm not saying that i'm smarter than everybody else in the system but what i don't understand is there is no provision that i'm aware of to pay for this one hundred twenty five million dollars that we have to pay for and we've been the last three years it's five billion dollars a year so in thirteen fourteen and fifteen we paid fifteen million dollars against this obligation think what we could have done with the fifteen billion dollars if we had refinanced it with the pension bond i know why ralph jones is opposed to it it's because in municipal finance it's kind of a no no now people have said and i think we both have been very respectful of each other because i'm not running against you i'm running against these ideas ralph doesn't like this idea at all and i understand why he doesn't like the idea but the reason people don't want to issue pension obligation bonds for municipalities is if the municipality is financing operating deficit with that with the pension obligation bonds that's not our problem we've created this this pension problem it's a one time event in our operating budget is solid without it and we need to take it out of the operating budget all right he would like to ask a question  because it's something that you brought up earlier jim in october of last year of two thousand and fourteen you posted a comment in on will bro burghers the website and i'll just quote a little bit and then i'm just going to ask you if you still believe this here's a quote i for one am not worried about housing proposal in the uplands for the following reasons all opportunities have windows and when not engage these when those close number one number two the property should be developed to achieve its highest and best use number three property rights should trump environmental ism unless true harm such as pollution is consequent and number four arlington and cambridge do not have affordable housing problems but belmont does and this is one way to resolve that conundrum and quote do you still believe this i mean i building on there and you borrowed money to buy it buy the property and you have your equity in it what would you do you know and i mean that's the way the world works the world doesn't it you know in in if the environmentalist and i'm an environmentalist myself if i want that property i go to my people and there are there are organizations and funds that can provide funds and i buy the property from you if i want you to do what i want you to do with your property so of course it starts there it has to start there now am i happy that the silver maples were cut down of course not but he owned the property should are i think that if it wasn't government but now line i believe that the board of selectmen run the town government and i respect everything that everybody does when when they're doing that there's no question but i think the buck stops at the board of selectmen and if you have if you have a small group of people that are agitating and they they can they can achieve their results then you know that just means they had more we've already talked about if it's no what would you what would you do so that's not going to help us out very much we i know i'm interested in i know that people disagree with this idea that you know we should solve the pension problem first in then address the retirement health care and of course my plan is to do both at the same time because i think we can refinance the pensions cheaper than we're paying for it now and then we can begin to fund the retirement health care so that we don't create a huge problem now i think david taylor is a great budgeteers and i think he knows as you know municipal ease and he's telling us that the the actual where we all run for the retirement health care is going to change and be reduced because the health care costs aren't going up as fast but the current run that we have now says that if we don't address that by twenty twenty eight the the obligation the town's obligation is going to be two hundred seventy one million dollars the so my question is why why are we comfortable with that i mean that's a that's an obligation that somebody like me can't fix that that is so large by comparison to the town's revenues that it  it's probably insurmountable so why would you why would the board of selectmen why would you insist on dealing with that in a serial fashion instead of doing both together good question obviously we're not the only ones in this same boat there are probably i think of the three hundred sixty odd communities in massachusetts there's three hundred forty eight that are in precisely the same boat as it is not a pure belmont problem that and because of that belmont cannot purely handle it by itself it's a big number you're absolutely right that's why it's going to take state action to help us help not just us help all those communities struggle out of this to do it preemptively as i've said before to do it preemptively everybody who knows the system in the states says don't  because help my becoming we don't want to preempt our ability to a veil ourselves of that help i agree with you it's a big problem we will deal with it we're dealing with it now why do we retain our aaa credit rating because moody's we have a policy to deal with pension and opap we're paying into we're paying down the pensions we have a policy we have a stabilization fund where we pay a little bit of money every year into that he says that's enough right now they understand the problem they understand that it's going to go to a bigger level meaning the state that's why they're not pushing us excessively i think it's a real problem jim i just don't think that your solution is a timely one at this moment ok no you understand that with regard to the  retirement health care i'm merely suggesting that we put two and a half million a year against that and i have some good reasons but it's it's kind of beyond the scope of this discussion but i'm not suggesting that we refinance or that we use a pension obligation for the retirement health care because it's too big a number in the only way to prevent it from becoming that big numbers is to begin to fund it seriously and i don't consider two hundred fifty hat jim is proposing is that he really he looks at the long term cost of this but he doesn't look at the short term cost at these individual residents who live here and pay bills monthly the gym's plan according to the town treasure is going to cost every taxpayer between one hundred thousand dollars a year for twenty years and you get nothing nothing in return it will preclude us from and i disagree with his numbers on the on the debt capacity the debt capacity may be about two hundred fifty but we're about eighty million according to the town treasurer already encumbered we're going to hit our debt capacity very very quickly and i don't think it's appropriate for our residents right now  thank you very much for the two of you brought a great deal of professionalism and a great deal of thought behind some some issues that many people don't even realize that we have and that has to do with long  so andy would you like to go first sure hello again this election is very important for belmont we need to carefully steward the town in the best interests of the residents belmont has a aaa credit rating that pending on the credit agency there are approximately twelve to fifteen such communities in massachusetts we depend on the low cost of borrowing and the market attention that this gives the town our capital projects the pentagon our ability to borrow and bond responsibly and economically batman has a level one school district does it nation there are only six districts in the state with this designation our schools excellence is a great source of pride for our community and helps to preserve our high property values do you want to risk our strong financial position and educational excellence on a risky untested strategy a pensioner no pep funding approach that runs counter to the best judgment of the town's many advisors and our credit rating agency the top state official in charge of pensions says that it's premature we should wait let the state take the lead don't do it now what additional tax burden on residents of these misguided proposals that give us ten chablis nothing to speak what will this do to the town's bonding capacity and how will it affect the many capital projects in the queue i'm worried about that i believe that you want a town government whose fiscally responsible history has allowed us to achieve a strong financial position educational excellence and high property values we've done that through very fiscal intentions and responsibility i believe that you also deserve a capital spending strategy that provides for new facilities like the new high school d p w yards at reduced financing rates i believe you want a town that represents residents rights and needs my actions will be guided by respecting the burdens on taxpayers increase the more efficient communications from the town with the residents as one of my important priorities i will reach out to all residents to better include their rights and expectations in our towns policies and mark the first thing i want to do is to provide my website is that like amazon i think so my website is williams for belmont dot org and my positions are outlined on the website i was seventh and we're trying to do that with regard to my closing statement now and i know i don't have too much time but i have to look at the camera ok i believe that good government provides citizens with services in a satisfactory manner for the common good and within available resources i think the only way to do this is to plan long term and execute short term with regard to the aaa rating that andy mentioned  believe that our aaa rating is at risk because of the way we're managing our financials moody's has cited the the the need to manage our long term reserves in a better way i think we have an excellent education system but we're threatening to make cuts to it so it seems counterintuitive that if everybody's who's advise ing that the town is doing so well why is the aaa rating at risk and why are we cutting our educational system i think there's also some confusion tonight i have two plans one is to address the pension fund which is a bond which ralph doesn't like but that's ok i can explain it to him and the other is  to begin to fund the open fund excuse me i swore i wouldn't and the retirement health care fund with actual cash which fifteen other towns are doing in in math chooses so i think think there's some confusion about the head of prim i know he's not opposed to that so we need to do those things i think that citizens need to vote as good government can't be taken for granted i believe towns need to engage in long term planning so i believe in fiscal discipline i believe in transparency so that citizens can understand what's going on i don't believe the management of our town has met these criteria recently and i think  we need a change in direction and if you want a change in direction the time is now like candy i want to make sure that belmont is able to remain a great town but i think the only way to do that is to get our financial management under control and i believe that the election is critical to the town's financial stability and future and if you're as concerned as i am i support my campaign and vote for me thank you thank you very candidates i think you know both of you have done a great job of promoting your views i think you've done it with professionalism and with great skill i'd like to thank about my media center and especially