Belmont Community Path

 Read all about it! Hot off the presses! Programming Policies Memo and For a preview of the Fall's show:  Ad Hoc Meeting August 19 video! It even has a joyful ending! Matt Genova, CTPS staff and the Ad Hoc Committee have been engaged in a fast but well thought out dash to set up new MPO policies to be voted on and approved by the MPO Board in mid September. The details of the new policies are set out in the memo linked above.  What it means to Belmont: upon submission of the 25% design, it won't be automatically accepted.  The design will be evaluated using new criteria including its cost effectiveness.  The MPO reserves the right to reject a project  if - as Len Diggins humorously put it - the project is a "dog" or if it does not score high enough.  Considering that Sen. Brownsberger seems poised to run the MBTA's safety standards over even if he has to call on Governor Baker to do so, I was glad to hear that the MPO will make sure that "abutters" m...

    I am writing this about 3 weeks after this meeting.  I am looking back as I struggle today to keep my garden alive during another human induced climate crisis heat wave. Humor  is not my companion today. I do recall vividly how boring this meeting was.  Boring because I see a repetition of certain themes: reality is massaged and "misinformation" is dealt so that it becomes the official record as meeting minutes.   It is all so very tedious.  But let's go to the meeting were a detailed "concept" was presented  (screenshots   of plan - dashed red lines =  temp. easements; hatched area = permanent easement;  scalloped line = vegetation/trees.)     7 Channing Rd. (E. Jammal’s property) In this morning session, the town is proceeding with its goal of taking permanently a large chunk of 7 Channing Rd, a property owned by developer E. Jammal and currently rented by Chase Bank.  The chunk of  land is all of the ...