Belmont Community Path

In order to shoehorn this project in back of our houses, the town has outright lied, hidden information, stonewalled and treated abutters as pariah's - all to sail through their project with minimal questions and opposition. One fact that was hidden and it took months to unearth was that this project entailed TURNING OUR BACKYARDS INTO A  CONSTRUCTION ROAD AND STAGING AREA for a period of 3-4 years. There goes BBQs with family and friends, children and/ dogs playing, home weddings, backyard pools, peace and quiet.  There comes construction trucks, Port-a-potties, work crews and noise. PATH WILL NOT BE LIGHTED Nitsch's staffer in charge of electrical installations showed up in the invoice for the underpass/tunnel and for the path.   Ellen Sugarman was confused by this pointing out that only the tunnel will be lighted not the path.    I am amused that a CPPC committee member is being kept in the dark.  It is MassDOT rules that a path not designat...

 I keep hearing town hall people blame the MBTA for the switch from tunnel jacking to cut & cover.  From the sequence of events that I witnessed, it was the town's own fault that the project started off with jacking. PARE vs NITSCH   It all started with the PARE to Nitsch switch at the design stage which was a very unconventional move. It's all described here  FIRST MEETING WITH NITSCH  At the first meeting after being hired, Michalak made mention of tunnel jacking. The committee members expressed some surprise saying they had expected cut & cover. Their surprise surprised me since the Nitch bid was so  much about jacking.  Michalak made it clear that the method to be used was jacking. SECOND MEETING WITH NITSCH At this meeting, Michalak talked about jacking but now he implied that he was obeying the town's wish to use jacking. This was quietly accepted by the committee members.  I was slack jawed at how responsibility for jacking had...

 Much of the space where the town wants to build the path and the underpass is already occupied by MBTA utilities as you will see in these videos and photos. These are videos and photos of the area where the town/Nitsch plan to put the underpass. It is the area where you will see small sheds connected by tubes to the tracks.  The large white tanks are propane tanks used to keep the switches from freezing in the winter. There are also many MBTA manhole covers that access cables laid along the length of the tracks.  According to an abutter to this area "Last summer, the trench they [MBTA] dug for the positive train control cable was 4 feet deep. "  However, Nitsch's Michalak has said that the tunnel must be placed 3 feet under the RR tracks to avoid our high water table. T his means is that the tunnel and the MBTA's underground conduit of cables are at odds with each other.   As anyone can see, the Alexander location will be a tight squeeze for the tunnel but...

  Briefly, in my own words, based on what Nitsch's Soltys said at the SB on Monday: A - waiting for the MBTA permit to conduct the SUE.  As soon as that is done, revision of the 25% design for submission this July.  B - review process is generally 30 days but it can be more.  Nitsch hopes for a 30 day review and approval of the 25% sometime in August, 2025 C - once 25% is approved, Nitsch can submit the 75% in September with another hoped-for 30 day review and approval which brings it to sometime in October, 2025. D - Nitsch then working on 100% while ROW gets done.  Nitsch expects this phase to last 11 months. E -  Nitsch expects to submit the 100% in Sept 2026 which is FY 2027. Below is Nitsch as quoted from MassDOT public records ["Ad date" = MassDOT puts out contract bid]: As discussed, attached is our DRAFT schedule showing a 2026 TIP year. Please note the following: 🔺Ad date listed for 9/12/26, the l...

SCHEDULE DELAY   I have the thread of emails and docs on this matter from MassDOT public records ( link to docs ) so my suspicions about the fact they have been stuck at 25% have been confirmed.  In addition, Nitsch engineers came before the town and admitted it  twice ( link to 3/24 SB video - Nitsch at 1 hr 30 min; for the 3/19 CPPC recording, ask CPPC Chairwoman Muson). The project is still stuck in the first step. The 25% design plan has not been approved.  Nitsch still needs to do  the Subsurface utility survey - Class B (SUE) which is essential for the sketching and structural design of the tunnel.  Hence, they don’t have a clue as how to design the tunnel at this point.  Cutting corners, they submitted plans for a 75% for the rest of the path in the absence of a 25% revised and approved plan. Wisely, MassDOT rejected it because the 25% was missing.  In their own defense, Nitsch argued that,as they saw it, the tunnel was a “minor spur” an...

 I am going to start going through my files and posting for historical reasons.  Soon I will post what is really happening with the Belmont Community Path and all the associated lies.  But here is a blast from the past.   After the town decided to switch from PARE to Nitsch unexpectedly, I wrote Amy Archer. To me it was an unfair decision.   To Amy Archer, PARE engineer July 20, 2019   I am sorry that this town won’t be working with Pare to develop the commuter path.   Besides stonewalling residents, it would seem there are other undercurrents at work that I find very upsetting. The choice, as far as I understood based on the discussion I heard the Friday of the presentations, had nothing to do with your credentials or quality of work.  As a matter of fact, your competitor’s presentation was subpar and seemed to reveal that they had not even read your feasibility study.  What I observed was a group of people trying to come up with reasons ...

  Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive " Abutters have asked for the engineering plan for the 25% design submittal or what Stanton called the "revised" 25% design.  Since, on January 10, Michalak (PE or Project Engineer) announced that the Public Hearing had been scheduled then this revised plan had to exist at that date.  JS requested it from MassDOT Public Records on Februaru 23 and waited and waited.  Finally around March 14-15, JS received documents: the original, unrevised 25% design submission from November 2021, ROW papers, and the bridge worksheet with a submission date of January 24. (It's a tunnel or underpass but technically it becomes a bridge).   Note that it is the original 25% not the revised design so it still has a figure indicating that the tunnel will be "jacked".   The other fun part is that the bridge worksheet was submitted on January 24th not by December 21, 2023 as Michalak had said at the Dec...

I've been on hiatus fron this blog after Nitsch's submission of the 25% design plan at the end of 2021.  All that time, I've continued to observe the CPPC meetings; they have been as interesting as watching paint dry. Nitsch's Michalak seemed to avoid the CPPC but, a few times, the CPPC succeeded in having Michalak show up to give a report of ... non-progress. This was confirmed by someone with knowledge of the project within the MBTA who complained to me of how Nitsch was not delivering the necessary engineering plan although 1 year had lapsed since the request made in 2022. Engineering plan vs design sketch  My MBTA interlocutor explained that an engineering plan is different from the design plan. The latter is a sketch; the former is plan that shows location of items and structures in the subsurface and surface of the project area.  The subsurface items include pipes and cables because you don't want to start digging - for example - to build a wall and then fin...

Dealing with the BCP project has been tiring: so many misleading statements, woefully unprepared and uninformed people.  I took a break from it all but now I am ready to continue.   Part of the reason for continuing is that I am keenly interested in how the CPPC develops in the next few months.  It feels as if I were watching a soap and I am sitting on the edge of my seat wondering: will Leino be deposed? will Friedman also be quietly removed? Will quiet but steely Muson be enthroned as Chair? The soap's storyline: since last year the CPPC has been struggling to have its charge extended in order to continue on to Phase 2 and it was facing deadline of Nov. 1, 2021.  However, the SB kept on dragging its heels.  The CPPC even went so far as to write the charge extension and sending it to the SB so that all that the SB would have to do was sign. But, alas! The SB still did not extend the charge. When Paolillo became the SB's liaison to the CPPC, he made it clea...

 It is getting harder to be amused at these meetings.  However, there *was* one funny moment hinging around Leino and Paolillo talking about their meeting with Jammal last week.    Stanton pleadingly asked:  had they broached the subject of the building itself?  The unspoken question fed by Stanton's desire  throbbed in the ether: did they ask Jammal whether they could demolish the L-shaped building into an "I"?  Seemingly flustered, Leino replied that they had not - a "Perish the thougth!!" implied.    CPPC Chair R. Leino Stanton then thrust back: had they broached the subject of landscaping for the spur? The shimmering arch of Stanton's much desired trellis appeared now in the ether. But once again, the answer was no. Seemingly deflated, Stanton sank back into silence.  After that, it was mostly humdrum except that Michalak put a stop to the CPPC/Paolillo's plan to proceed with eminent domain (ED) appraisals and “trans...

  At the Sept 29 CPPC meeting , "Friedman pointed out that there is “a bunch of construction beginning on Pleasant St.” and that the "businesses and such" there must be made aware that they will have to accommodate the BCP coming through.  Checking the Planning Board site shows that there are two applications pending from businesses along Pleasant St.  One is to turn Lenny's garage into a Mint Dispensary but this does not seem to alter the current footprint.   However, the other is a complete revamping of the Subaru dealership property which includes a new 3-story building. Information from a local source reveals that 2 additional businesses are planning construction within their property. Friedman's was a surprising statement that revealed that the BCP Phase 2 plan is for it to run south of Pleasant St, in back of the businesses there.  Surprising because this is not one of the Pare feasibility study's potential routes.  In other words, the Pare...

The CPPC keeps on testing the Open Meeting Law.    For the previous meeting, they went back to getting the notice under the wire by the minimum time allowable which is 48 hrs.  For this meeting, the agenda was stamped by the clerk on Sept 23 but it was *never* posted on the Town’s Calendar or the CPPC's own calendar.  It was only listed under "Agenda".  This fact was brought to my attention by a fellow abutter last night who was mystified as to where to find the notice and asked for help.   Moving on to the meeting ... 7 Channing Rd [and Pleasant St] Town and Nitsch will meet with Jammal next week unless “it goes south” again. [Pleasant St abutters reported to me that no one has approached them;  as one wrote: “not one peep”.   So Michalak’s talk on the 15th about meeting with them and presenting the Copley-Wolff “renderings" has gone nowhere so far.] MPO TIP Policy Changes I think the CPPC has been aware that the policy changes wil...

 Michalak and Clancy attended.   Michalak reported. 7 Channing Rd: Jammal scheduled a site meeting and, at the last minute, cancelled.  Clancy, Michalak will schedule again. Later on, Michalak said that submitting the 25% design did not depend on meeting Jammal: "that connection/spur is in the plan”.   All they wanted is Jammal’s approval of the spur/path planned for the side of the Chase building.  But Michalak conceded that the only thing he can see changing in the 25% are the access points such as the spur.  [My guess  is that they are likely to back down when it comes to the spur.] Soil borings 1.  Borings that required Keolis/MBTA were completed last week (week of Sept 6).   2.  Two other borings to be completed by the end of this week (week of Sept 13th).  These Pleasant St borings moved away from the ROW "to reduce cost and easier access”.* *Via FOIA request, I received Nitsch-GZA-Clancy emails .  This ROW issu...

[This post was written on Sept. 2] CPPC seemed to expect that Clancy and/or Nitsch's Michalak would attend.  Neither showed up so the meeting was short consisting of updates and approving one minutes.  Priceless moments of hearing Leino struggling to massage the truth into pablum suitable for the public (he tends to sound tortured when doing so as I’ve learned through the years). This is the second meeting that Clancy and Garvin (aka "town staff") skip so they’ve been missing for about 1 month.   It raises a question as to whether they are working on something behind the scenes; maybe, they are just working on Town Day.  (Recall that on June 9th’s CPPC meeting, town staff explained that they had been absent in order to keep from publicly reporting their activity which had been undermining FF’s amendment by producing the “French plan”.) The updates fell into 4 areas: 1) soil borings status; 2) Fire Chief's concerns; 3) 7 Channing Rd; 4) MPO's upcoming TIP policy ...