Belmont – Belmont Citizens Forum

Belmont’s Historic Home Plaques

Historic Preservation, January/February 2025, Newsletter Comments Off

Jan 032025

Belmont’s Historic Home Plaques The Belmont Historical Society (BHS) recently celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its historic home plaque program, with 45 plaques now displayed on historic homes around town. Belmont’s historic homes are greatly diverse in their architecture, ranging from Georgian to Victorian to Craftsman and mid-century modern. To qualify for a plaque, a home must be at least 50 years old, retain its original design integrity, and have a clean chain of title. For more information about this program, contact belmonthistory1859@gmail.com. Photos by Evanthia Malliris and John Beaty.

Letter to the Editor: Roundabouts

Bicycles and bike paths, January/February 2025, Newsletter, Traffic Comments Off

Jan 032025

To the Editor: I am looking at the September/October BCF Newsletter article, “Town Works to Make Streets Safer for All,” with plans for the roundabouts on Concord Avenue at Winter and Mill Streets. I favor roundabouts for the sake of traffic safety, and so I am in favor of most of the project. The drawings, however, show a bikeway along the southwest side of Concord Avenue, narrow at the ends and widening as it passes two roundabouts, where there are crosswalks, and ending on Mill Street. The bikeway serves only eastbound bicycle traffic. A sidewalk is shown on the northeast [READ MORE]

Homer House Restoration Gets Underway

Historic Preservation, January/February 2025, Newsletter, Plants Comments Off

Jan 032025

By Wendy Murphy and Neal Winston Driving down Concord Avenue from Belmont Hill into town, you can’t help but notice the emergence of a stately Victorian mansion. A wall of trees hiding the mansion was removed this spring as part of a landscape restoration project for the back and side yards of the 1853 William Flagg Homer House at 661 Pleasant Street. The Belmont Woman’s Club owns the house and land. The project was sponsored and managed by the Belmont Land Trust, a volunteer nonprofit organization, which has held a conservation restriction on the property since 2010. Long neglected, the [READ MORE]

Profiles in Belmont: Dr. Gi Yoon-Huang

January/February 2025 Comments Off

Jan 032025

By Elissa Ely In this rough world, there are those who turn to all sides with grievance and rage. But there are also those who turn with care and gentleness—and if they happen to turn with medical expertise as well, the rough world is fortunate. They are treasures. Here is one. Gi Yoon Huang, MD—co-director of the Belmont Celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage group, Town Meeting member, and member of multiple Belmont committees—was born in South Korea. Her parents had moved to Virginia from their impoverished, war-battered country (“it was their American dream”), but her mother returned briefly back [READ MORE]

Town Still Hangs From ‘Fiscal Cliff’

Board of Selectmen, January/February 2025, Newsletter Comments Off

Jan 032025

By Allison Lenk and Robie White Two years ago, the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter published the article, “Have You Read the Collins Center Report?” The 2022 report, produced by the Edwards J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management, stresses the urgency of acting on their recommendations which were initially made in 2018. The earlier report included a warning that Belmont would be falling off a “fiscal cliff” in the future if changes weren’t pursued. The Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management is part of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts [READ MORE]

Belmont’s Owls are Calling, and Dying

January/February 2025, Newsletter Comments Off

Jan 032025

by Fred Bouchard With its regal size and stern, brow-knit mien, the Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus, GHO) stands as not just a sagacious symbol of wisdom but as a fearsome, widespread nocturnal raptor. Its namesake horns, conspicuous 2-inch erect ear tufts, help triangulate aurally on prey. Aptly called a “tiger among birds” by ornithologist Frank Chapman, these owls once raided chicken coops. Today they are the scourge of smaller birds (even smaller owls) and suburban mammals like rabbits and rodents. And therein lies their unique vulnerability. As apex avian predators, owls—along with hawks and eagles—are subject to being victimized [READ MORE]

BCF Asks State to Suspend SGAR Registration

January/February 2025 Comments Off

Jan 032025

BCF Asks State to Suspend SGAR Registration

The following letter was sent to the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources on December 16, 2024. Dear Members of the Pesticide Board Subcommittee, The Belmont Citizens Forum, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of the environmental quality of Belmont and surrounding areas, strongly supports the suspension of the registration and legal use of Second-Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs) in Massachusetts. The Belmont Citizens Forum publishes a bimonthly newsletter that informs residents about local environmental and community issues. Recent editions have featured articles detailing the dangers of SGARs, including their impacts on wildlife, ecosystems, and public health. These articles [READ MORE]

Belmont’s Decarbonization Path Stays Uncertain

January/February 2025, Newsletter Comments Off

Jan 032025

Belmont’s Decarbonization Path Stays Uncertain

By Brian Kopperl and Roger Wrubel In the 2024 July/August BCF Newsletter, the Belmont Energy Committee (EC) updated BCF readers on the committee’s work to advance Belmont’s decarbonization efforts. The EC is now encouraging the town to pursue Climate Leader Community certification, to give the school department the option to acquire several electric school buses and to apply for a new Mass Save grant to fund a town energy manager to help the town obtain and manage decarbonization and energy efficiency grants to meet the town’s Climate Roadmap goals adopted in 2019. Climate Leaders Communities The Department of Energy Resources [READ MORE]

Belmont’s Brumal Birds Will Soon Abound

Environment, Newsletter, November/December 2024 Comments Off

Oct 282024

By Fred Bouchard. Photographs by Shawn Carey. We’ve changed tactics for getting familiar with our bird buddies of the brumal (pre-vernal, i.e., winter) season. We’ll pair like with like—woodpeckers, raptors, songsters, and feeder favorites. For more information, research any species by visiting ebird.org. Downy Woodpecker / Red-bellied Woodpecker Woodies are mostly non-migratory. While flickers and sapsuckers head South, the rest abide with us—quite vocally—year-round; in leafless months we get to see them better. Of the five remaining, three mainly stay in forested areas: the mid-sized Hairy, the majestic Pileated (“Woody”) and the rare Red-headed Woodpeckers. Our likelier winter peckers [READ MORE]

Lone Tree Hill Displays Autumn Glory

Lone Tree Hill, November/December 2024 Comments Off

Oct 282024

Photos by Jeffrey North Lone Tree Hill is a popular spot for a springtime stroll—but Belmont’s open space offers fall fascination as well. From asters to mountain mint, the site’s native plants put on a colorful autumn show.

BCF Community Service Opportunity

November/December 2024, Traffic Comments Off

Oct 282024

I hope to recruit a high school student to work with me on a Belmont traffic project for community service. The project will use the rotary at the intersection of Grove, Blanchard and Washington Streets to estimate the effectiveness of similar rotaries at the entrance to McLean Hospital at Mill Street, and at the intersection of Concord Avenue and Common Street at Belmont Center. I am a retired electrical engineer with an advanced degree from MIT. I did a traffic study in 2017 with a high school student to estimate Belmont’s cut-through traffic during the morning rush hour. Here are [READ MORE]

Belmont Serves Subdues Center Knotweed

BCF Events, Environment, November/December 2024 Comments Off

Oct 282024

On October 14, stalwart Belmont Serves volunteers—working with Belmont Conservation Volunteers—took shovels and snips in hand to clear a massive Japanese knotweed infestation on town-owned land abutting the railroad tracks, the site of the future community path Thank you to everyone who pitched in.

Letter to the Editor: Traffic at McLean

Newsletter, November/December 2024, Traffic Comments Off

Oct 282024

To the Editor; On June 26, Belmont Town Meeting approved the amended Traffic Monitoring and Mitigation Agreement between Belmont and McLean Hospital. Part of the agreement is to improve the intersection of McLean Drive and Mill Street. The plan is to install adaptive traffic signals at the intersection that use a camera and software to control the lights based on what is needed on a moment-by-moment basis. In 2017, a high school student who needed community service credits and I spent the summer counting cars to estimate the cut-through traffic in Belmont during the morning rush. We did good work. [READ MORE]

Belmont’s Student Bikers Cut School Traffic

Bicycles and bike paths, November/December 2024 Comments Off

Oct 282024

Belmont’s Student Bikers Cut School Traffic

Test and photos by David Chase This fall, we solved a school crowding problem by moving two grades from the middle school to the new combined middle and high school. However, with almost 50% more students arriving every morning, this move aggravated an already-bad traffic problem on Concord Avenue. The new combined school has 2,128 students. If each one of them traveled in a car through the single-lane Goden Street entrance, the line would take over an hour to clear. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen; many students carpool, many walk, many get dropped off a short distance from the high school [READ MORE]

Profiles in Belmont: Peter Struzziero

November/December 2024 Comments Off

Oct 282024

By Elissa Ely Eight hundred people a day used to visit the Belmont Public Library on Concord Avenue when the building existed, and few of them ran into Peter Struzziero, the library director. Even fewer run into him now. You would need to hang a right off Grant Street onto tiny C Street, past Department of Public Works trucks and equipment, into a cavernous but immaculate town garage the size of a warehouse, and through a door that appears out of nowhere. It’s a little like spelunking, except there are windows. The library’s reconstruction project is well underway, hopefully to [READ MORE]

Town Meeting to Decide MBTA Zoning

Construction and Housing, Newsletter, November/December 2024 Comments Off

Oct 282024

Below are three articles on the MBTA Community zoning (3A rezoning) proposals that will come before Town Meeting this November. An Overview of 3A By Taylor Yates This fall, Belmont Town Meeting will consider a plan to comply with the MBTA Communities Act, a law passed by the state to increase the supply of housing across 177 towns. Each town, including Belmont, is required to zone for a specified amount of multifamily homes across a specified number of acres. Belmont must zone for at least 1,632 homes across a minimum of 27 acres. After two years of work by both [READ MORE]

Autumn Avians Brighten Belmont

Newsletter Comments Off

Aug 232024

By Fred Bouchard This is a selective survey of Belmont birds that you might observe in Belmont from October through December, or even into winter as our climate warms. Four arbitrarily selected environments highlight our tour: two of the town’s “birdier” (and, coincidentally, more visited) locales, Rock Meadow and Clay Pit Pond, Belmont Backyards, and Little Pond. Rock Meadow: American Goldfinch, Northern Cardinal These familiar endearing species share the common trait of sexual dimorphism: gals and guys don’t dress alike! Male goldfinches’ plumage shouts “yellow and black!” in the breeding season, when their conical seed-searching bills turn gray to pink, [READ MORE]

Belmont’s Victory Gardens Remain Vibrant

Environment, History, Lone Tree Hill, Newsletter, Open Space, September/October 2024 Comments Off

Aug 232024

Belmont’s Victory Gardens Remain Vibrant

By Jeffrey North Victory gardening in Belmont has never been more popular (local food production activity during World War II notwithstanding). One of the largest and oldest continuously active community gardens in the Boston area, Belmont’s Rock Meadow Victory Gardens consists of 132 garden plots of varying sizes, typically ranging from 12 by 12 feet to 50 by 50 feet. The gardens cover about three acres of land at the Rock Meadow Conservation Area along Mill Street, between Trapelo Road on the south and Winter Street on the north. After glaciers retreated 10,000 years ago, Native Americans burned the land [READ MORE]

Belmont’s Trees Enrich Town Streetscape

Newsletter, September/October 2024 Comments Off

Aug 232024

By Vicki Amalfitano, Lucia Gates, Eva Hoffman, and Adam Howe What makes you feel at ease when you drive down a town street? Would it be as comfortable on a hot summer’s day without shade trees? Tall, beautiful oak, maple, and birch trees; magnificent beech trees, flowering dogwood, magnolia, and cherry trees enrich our streets and yards. They fill our senses with their beauty, and they cool our homes. They take in the carbon dioxide we breathe out, and they release the oxygen we breathe in. We are grateful for the trees’ benefits and their positive impact on the value [READ MORE]

Profile in Belmont: Wendy Murphy

Historic Preservation, History, September/October 2024 Comments Off

Aug 232024

By Elissa Ely “What is that house?” Wendy Murphy thought the first time she saw the mansion at 661 Pleasant Street: elevated, magisterial, remote, uninhabited, yet somehow alive. “Is it haunted?” The William Flagg Homer House is neither inhabited nor haunted, though it is alive with architecture and art. As president of the Belmont Woman’s Club, Wendy became one of its protectors. Her decade-long tenure exceeds term limits, though not for lack of a successor search. “I’m like a general contractor,” she says ruefully, “and the problem with being productive is that no one wants to be that busy.” The [READ MORE]

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