the following podcast is produced or sponsored by a community member the content views and opinions expressed or lives of the participants and do not reflect those of v m c or the town of bama b m c welcomes your comments  segments with each candidate the three candidates are tim flood roy upselling and jesse bennett the audio version of these podcasts will be available on the belmont media centers 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 centers television stations you can review the weekly programming schedule for belmont media and media dot org to find the day and time of the broadcast at the time most convenient to you tim welcome to today's edition of community conversations i know you've got a small business you're busy and i truly appreciate  you taking time to come over and talk with us today thank you very much for inviting me before we really get into the meat of our conversations today can you give us a brief introduction to who you are who is casey i graduated from arlington high school and after that i joined i joined the marine corps i was in the marine corps about six years active two years in active while i was active i deployed for both  the afghanistan war and the war in iraq i had actually originally got out of my st four years and then was recalled about a month and a half later and fifty eight propeller road ok thanks we're going to talk about four substantive topics today i mean ask about the budget about capital expenditures about the environment and about town governance we have a lot to cover and as the town moderator tells us a town meeting every single year when you give me an answer give the headline st and then back up and fill it short if you would please that is i'll do my best ok let's start with the the town budget last august the call and center forecasted it you point three million dollars deficit override that allowed a property tax increase and at the time of the over right there were folks who said that there was a substantial potential for friend mansel savings in belmont in belmont's budget do you agree that there is room for financial savings and if so where might those savings arise absolutely not the reason why i say that is we have about one hundred and fifty million dollars in liabilities currently for our pension and and we haven't been taking proper steps to pay that in when you take that into account you actually look at the budget that i've read about two weeks ago showing us sixteen million dollars negative so if we're saying that you know we have ability to have extra money somewhere we're not showing it on the books in reality is it is not on the books we don't have it ok when the town passed and operated the operating override a few years ago the belief was that it would last a few years and we've squeeze some extra time even very likely it's going to be by two thousand and twenty one and and i think that after looking at the budget myself i don't think there's a question about that and when we say two thousand and twenty one just to you know what you're saying there and i know what you're saying but  the town's war 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 that the committee reported only two point four percent involved actual fires another rd involved emergency responses by an ambulance and another twenty percent involved in life support transport given that data how do you react to the notion that perhaps it's time for belmont to move to a combined public safety department rather than having to separate a separate fire department and a separate police department i would say  far as combining the two departments i do you ask if we're if we're looking to combine physical cations or functionality of both functionality i mean the police have a completely separate mission then your fire department  so realistically there to try and merge them i don't think is is something that is quite frankly you know they're there they have two separate i mean course you know fire department has multiple locations throughout the town to be able to respond quickly and police obviously they as a general rule they'll stage vehicles or all the town to be able to respond quickly you know but again that their roles are two separate entities into separate two completely separate  the town so i would say no we can't march that ok let's leave the operating budget for a minute and talk about capital needs in belmont for a few minutes the belmont library building committee recently hired an architect actually begin designing a new public library and the proposal is to build a new structure at the same site is the existing structure on concord and the new building would be or was projected if it had the construction of started this year in two thousand and eighteen was projected to cost twenty three million four hundred thousand dollars do you agree with the recommendation to move forward with building a new library so the recommendation on the whole yes absolutely we need a new library a library is fundamental to operating town you know and in fact this particular library and  if i'm remembering correctly they are the th most visited library in the country so that tells you a lot and it's obviously not just belmont that using that library it's surrounding communities so you know you can look at that and  multifaceted way where you have the individual some town using it but then you have various people from other towns using it so then that might transcribe into ok maybe they stop at the local pizza place or maybe they stop at the local store so you know taking that into consideration there's no doubt we need another library and given that the town just passed the debt exclusion for a new seven through twelve school where does the library fit in your vision i don't know if that's the right word but your notion of timing for building and or pursue new labor well that's the tricky part that we're looking at this is a very big project that we're going to be working on multiple year project for the high school and we're trying to put the police station at the same time in the d p w at the same time and it's not realistic to have them going on at the same time they need to be spaced out more properly you know when you're looking at you know having a dead exclusion you have to properly space those out because they come due you know the reality is if you don't space them out you're going to put yourself in a position where you're not going to be able to pay something on time ok relating to or let's think about capitols expenditures in particular although i think that this question also applies to an operating override on the one hand we have buildings that have to be replaced we will have to have a new school we have to have a new library we have to have a new police station and that those buildings together unquestionably are going to cost a lot of money that's a term of art a lot of money on the other hand we have belmont residents who are often aged and who have often lived here their entire lives who simply can't afford to pay the increased property tax bill that's necessary to fund what needs to be funded so in the one hand the inability to pay doesn't make the need go away but the need doesn't make  pay any greater right as a member of the board of selectmen you're right smack in the middle of that how do you balance those two that question makes sense you know so i think so ok so you know eleven of the things that is unfortunate for the town is the main is planned that should have been put into place many many years ago were not put in place and or they weren't followed i can't answer if they weren't put in place or if they weren't followed but the reality is any time you have a structure and do include the brand new school that's going to be put in you have to have a maintenance plan and if you don't what the main is plain and beginning then you can't anticipate your long run so you know it's something that should have been done a long time ago it wasn't so now unfortunately we have to address it and what has tend to happen through the years is things get kicked down the road new reality is everything is coming to a head now ok and how do we help people who can't can't afford to pay so or do we i maybe i shouldn't assume short you know i think the reality is we want to help everyone i think that's human nature  but i think we're in a position and it pains me to say this i think we're in a position where we can't help everyone and we have to say you know what this is our budget this is where we're out this is what we can do and we can't overspend because we've already overspent in the past so we have to nip it in the bud now and say we have to take a sturdy measures now to get us back to a level playing ground and then move forward so it's going to hurt people right now and unfortunately you know it's not th people that are acting now it's what wasn't done in the past it's making them react now ok let's talk about the environment for a few minutes not too long ago the u s environmental protection assessment of local water quality in the mystic river watershed in the e p a found that have the mystic rivers twenty one communities belmont's waterways in particular were in horrible shape one of the primary sources of the offending pollution the e p a said is quote uncontrolled urban storm water runoff now nearly all state and federal programs that provide grant money to help local governments upgrade their stormwater systems require a matching local dollar amount but because belmont's current system of funding is stormwater system is through rates and rates are considered to be an adequate source of matching funds though much can't access the state and federal dollars given all of that would you support the creation of what's called the storm water utility a specific in debt and we've been in debt for a long time you know for us to address everything that we need to address you know i don't i don't see a way and maybe someone can suggest something to me but i don't see a way to do it without having a fee ok in may of two thousand what's changed areas of the environmental a little bit in may of two thousand and sixteen the state supreme judicial court ruled in the case came to the massachusetts department of environmental protection that the state has not done enough to meet the mandates of the state's two thousand and eight global warming solutions act which requires massachusetts to cut its greenhouse light of that s j c decision and given that the board of selectmen also sits as the belmont light governing board the light board do you support the recommendations of the town's energy committee which i chair as full disclosure that i move to a one hundred percent emission free supplied by the year two thousand and twenty two i think it's a good goal to have it do i think i have to say based upon what it was originally set up to now was it realistic at that point in time is it possible yes but i don't know when it was set up obviously you can feel free to fill me in that with that but as far as if we're talking today no it's not it's not that's not the important part of the question sure you know of course and one of the things that you know when you're in a position like this a lot of people look for you for answers and the reality is you don't have all the answers we have a lot of great volunteers in this town and we have a lot of committees that are you know tied into volunteers as well and i would have to reach out to them and get their recommendations you know of course i'm going to take their recommendations but i'm going to listen to the townspeople as well you know because the you know every board has a goal in mind and you know maybe it's what the board wants but maybe it doesn't necessarily exactly tined what the town wants we need to make sure that that emerges somewhere but at the end of the  day questions like that there's a reason why we have wars and there's a reason why we have volunteers ok finally i'd like to talk about kevin governance st a couple minutes there has been substantial concern over the past few years now that the job of being a member of belmont's board of selectmen is just too big for a person who is for the for the most part an unpaid  volunteer one aspect that seems to receive particularly short shrift is the job of being a member of the light board which runs the department would you support or not support separating the light board from the job of the light board from the job of being a member of the board of selectmen i mean i think that makes sense you know i don't know why didn't happen in the st place to be honest with you with that being the fact that they're one in the same body correct ok you know and i would imagine there might be some conflict of interest at times that would be my concern you know so if you're if you're on a board and you're supposed to be a representative of the selectmen if there was some sort of conflict or interest in your you you have to recuse yourself and that you know long term that could potentially cause problems i mean that's the only thing i can  offhand that would be a problem but you know it seems to me that we have enough people that are interested in volunteering or or coming on a board and  working on a board that it i think we should be able to spread though that a little bit more and you have opinions about there are currently conversations going on about whether some elected positions should instead be appointed it's got a lot of elected positions but you know there's the the treasurer and the library board and the cemetery commission do you have any opinions about whether those should remain as they are whether they should be made appointed or hired well mike my concern about any type of appointing is who's doing the appointing if you if you have a truly neutral board doing the appointing then there's not an issue boards not a neutral board then that appointment can be cause of question and you know when you're doing a vote arguably that's going to give you the most neutral ability to have that spot filled by someone is going to speak on behalf of the entire community now patrice garvey and the town administrator recently filled a new position in town government does so we have for the  time ever a town budget director given that we have a budget director now for the st time ever in addition to having a town administrator how would you view your  i don't want to personalize this how would you view the interaction between the board of selectmen and the town administrator and the budget director as far as the preparation and presentation of the town budget  well i think that open dialogue needs to be there you know that everyone you're supposed to work as a team everyone has their individual jobs but you have to come together have open dialogue and and make sure that you're all working in the best interests of the community and as long as you're doing so to an excess people are listening to this to listen to my opinions i mean to give it to you anyway excessively says i'd like to take you up twenty or thirty or forty thousand feet because  how do you respond to that or do you have reaction to that i mean i'd like to think that everyone that is running for any elected position is running for the right reasons i know i'm running for the right  reasons i hope the others are running for the right reasons as well you know but i think the reality is sometimes even if they are there are also eighteen members that have their own agenda as well so you know  i'd love to say you're not going to see anything negative in campaigns and i can tell you they'll be never be anything from a negative you know but do i realistically think that's going to happen over time y of course i do and that's why you know fire part is starting you know i mentioned you know once once you're a public figure you're a public figure whether you like it or not and you say you said something that i can't let go by  said that you're running for the right reasons what do you consider the right reasons to be so one of the things that prompted me to actually get into the election and as everyone knows it was more or less last minute  walked into every single business in this town unless it was like in a home and i've asked for advertising funds you know will you advertise in our book and in which supports it generally p t o which supports the students of the town scuse me and you know of the middle school correct and it was actually extremely surprising to me at the apathy that i received and some at times it was it was a to look at that a bit more and one of the things that i've experienced myself was trying to open my business here is that the process is long and drawn out and as i started to investigate that more started to talk to other businesses it turns out that's pretty commonplace you know right now i'm quoted you know roughly almost twelve months before a business can start the process to open and people have to understand that as a small business and you know myself as a small business owner you don't have unlimited funds sometimes it's paycheck to paycheck until you get things going it takes a few years to get things going so if you have any pay they rent for twelve months and not be open and not have income coming in on top having to deal with contractors or you know in my case a they asked me to to supply renderings which other businesses in town said wallace i didn't have to do that you know it it  to question if we need to address the whole process and i think we do you know and of course that extends out in to the individual communities because of course then i started talking to  homeowners and you know just people walking down the street kind of getting their feeling on hey what is belmont all about you know i'm running a business and sometimes you miss some of that because you're so busy concentrating on your business then when you get out there and you actually put you know feet to the ground you know you start hearing a different perception of what you thought was happening that's great well we're almost out of time but i want to go through a lightning round and this is  for fun and i'm going to give you ten either or choices and i'd like to have you simply give me your answer without an explanation ok and most of the time the answer will be one word ok ok ready let's go when are vacations or summer vacations summer poker or chess poker the beatles or the starbucks that's a tough one beatles  baseball or football football the beach or the mountains mountains red wine or white white white peanut butter and jelly or herrmann cheese you know burning jelly coke or pepsi pepsi pancakes or waffles ahead i didn't mean to cut you no not at all not at all it's i appreciate the opportunity and you know that the one thing that i'd like to say in i've said it to pretty much everyone that i've run into is i just hope everyone keeps an open mind and then at the end of the day i know you're busy and i appreciate you taking time to come over to the studios today to talk with us thank you very much i've been speaking today with tim flood one of three candidates for belmont's board of selectmen in a special edition of community conversations i should note that tim's opponents are also appearing on identical podcast being taped today as well you can access the conversations with all three candidates through the belmont media centers website belmont media dot org a video of our podcast session will also be rebroadcast any number of times on the belmont media centers television stations you can find the broadcast time by looking at community conversations in the t v listings on the b m c website today's conversations with board of selectmen candidates tim floyd tim flood i mean i was secret him floyd used to be the coach i was state tim flood roy epstein and jess bennett 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 conversation so strowger coltan thank you for listening i'll talk to you again next time