Belmont Community Path

  It the morning of July 12,  2019, I attended the Nitsch and PARE presentations in town hall in a bid for the BCP design contract.  I only had received one public meeting notice during the PARE feasibility study so I was poorly acquainted with the PARE team. As I saw the two engineering teams file into the BOS room, I was struck by the professionalism and polish of one vs the sloppiness of the other.  The presentations were also a study in contrasts: a full presentation of the design challenges and how to address them vs a tedious exposition of tunnel jacking which was the expertise of GZA, one of Nitsch's subcontractors. After reading the proposals and attending the presentations, it seemed obvious who should win the contract: PARE.   After the PARE and Nitsch ended the presentations and left, the CPPC opened up a meeting and the first comment was offered by Friedman.  As soon as I heard her words, I had no doubt that the CPPC would hire Nitsch....

    In November 2017,  PARE Corp. published Engineer Amy Archer 's Belmont Community Path (BCP) Feasibility Study with a recommended route based primarily on site understanding and public engagement (town and residents).  The PARE FS link was available for download from the town's website and I let fellow abutter Annie know.  It was Annie who came to me later and pointed out that the downloaded FS was incomplete: eight appendices were missing and I hadn't noticed.   She also complained that she had requested several times the appendices from S. Gober- town staffer that worked with the CPPC - but, after weeks of waiting, he still had not send them.  Annie wanted my help. That Gober was not forthcoming with the files was not surprising; it was his way as it was Wheeler's to stonewall the abutters.  I made requests by email and left voicemails for Gober becoming steadily more irritated with the habitual lack of reply.  Finally, on July 3rd...

P.C's. excellent brief summary of this meeting: The 1st hour was a cppc bitch session about nitsch(??). Then, i think they gave up on getting patrice and glen to help them with nitsch.  Now, they are enlisting mark to talk to nitsch. Then, they asked mark about bikepath part 2 and the cppc. I dont think either mark or glen or patrice were overwhelmingly enthusiastic about the cppc being involved although they did not object. Mark is all for the bikepath. I think mark is sending a message with how he handled russ to maybe glen & patty & the rest of the crew.  That is if you dont perform, you will be replaced . Then the subjects evolved into getting other town committees involved. This is where i fell asleep. No loss.  What a waste of time!!!!! Vince talks in circles. Oh oh oh. So do es Bonny . Fun fun fun. _____________________________ Now for the boring long version: Meet Paolillo. Paolillo is the new BOS liaison to the CPPC and, swiftly, he seized control of t...

   Today, the CPPC was in damage control mode including their unofficial member, Goentzel (Friends of the BCP).  It was damage control done in a semi ignorant manner with some proposed law breaking thrown in.  Damage control dealt primarily with funding and with abutter outreach. Funding. Recapping : a) the MPO has no funds to take on new expensive projects such as the BCP, a Bike-Ped program; b) Bike and Ped programs are no longer a priority so any surplus funds most likely will be assigned to other programs;  c) this austere budget stretches as far as 2026; d) MPO is discussing policy changes that will make project funding estimate increases, cost overruns fall on the town AND the MPO share of the agreed upon budget may decrease each year with the amount shifted to the town.  Hence the more years a project runs, the higher the cost to the town. Ignoring the reality of the MPO's budget woes, the CPPC proceeded to pump itself by: a) saying that bringing up ...

  Yesterday, Leino said “ all roads lead to the MPO ” but all the roads lead to a dead end.  There is zilch, nada, zip, zero dollars from the MPO!   MPO concluded its TIP 22-26 programming just now (11:30 am). **GOOD NEWS**:   no new projects such as the Belmont Community Path will be programmed!   In this TIP cycle, they will only have money ($20.3M) left umprogrammed in 2026.   Those $20.3M potentially could  be used for new projects in 2026.  BUT, the Board took the vote at 11:20 am to leave the money un-programmed!!  This means that the MPO will not take on new projects as far out as 2026! We still have a problem with Brownsberger and MassBike*  in that both seemed to be ordering the CPPC to continue forging ahead (read CPPC meeting 033121 - to be linked soon).  If they continue with eminent domain, they will tie down our properties with liens that will affect selling, mortgaging, etc. and who knows what other pointless mo...