When resident and local historian Ron Sacca had trouble finding relatives on Burial Hill at Belmont Cemetery last summer, he turned to the town for help.
According to Public Works Director Jay Marcotte, it wasn’t long before he understood why identifying stones was such a task—located on a steep incline, most stones were worn out and damaged, covered in overgrown grass.
“Can we start digging?” Marcotte recalled Sacca asking, laughing as he relayed the story to Town Meeting members Monday night. “That was when I called a timeout.”
Instead of taking shovels to the ground, they discussed Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding as an avenue for the restoration of the Burial Hill section of the cemetery. Initially, Sacca came to Marcotte, who’d offered to partner with him on the project, with a proposal for the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) that sought more than $500,000 to fund the design and construction of the project.
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The Community Preservation Act, signed into law in 2000 and adopted by Belmont in 2010, allows the town to impose a 1.5% surcharge on local real estate taxes to provide a funding source for open space, community housing, and historic resources. Whatever a community raises, the state matches. Applications are considered first by the Community Preservation Committee before ultimately appearing before Town Meeting for a final stamp of approval.
According to CPC Chair Aaron Pikcilingis, the committee brought forth project recommendations totaling about $4.9 million.
Recognizing $500,000 was a large ask, Marcotte reeled in the number, and together they agreed to focus on just the design. For about $60,000, the work, lead by KZLA Architecture, would include an on-site survey to document existing plot markers and headstones; identifying headstones that need resetting or repair; prepare a project notification to be submitted to the Massachusetts Historical Commission; and prepare plans suitable for public bid to restore the pilot areas of the cemetery, according to the application. Part of the design process will include studies to determine the best alternative for ground cover.
“I felt it would be a better project if we slowed down a bit … and come back to the CPC the following year with a proposal for restoration,” Marcotte said.
While there was some pushback about the use of almost $60,000 for a seemingly personal endeavor, most who spoke agreed it was a worthwhile cause. Sacca’s personal interest may have been the impetus, but the impact stretches beyond that.
“The thing that’s great about the CPC is it creates this space where someone in the community can say, ‘Hey this is something I see as a need,’” Precinct 8 Town Meeting member Kathleen Fitzie Cowing said, referring both to Sacca’s proposal as well as the two parents spearheading the Chenery Park Complex Restoration project, which also sought CPA funding Monday night. “The CPC is there for these grassroots organizations … to find a funding source when there isn’t another one.”
Major issues like housing already have strong advocates, Cowing said. It’s smaller-scale projects like these that the Community Preservation Act was created to support.
“Many of those graves are veterans’ graves,” said Precinct 1 Town Meeting member Anne Marie Mahoney. “We owe these people, no matter how many hundreds of years ago, we owe them the restoration and care of their graves.”
Ultimately, Town Meeting approved the request by a vote of 218-10, with eight abstentions. It was one of six CPA requests considered by Town Meeting members this week. One of the six, related to the Community Walking Path, was withdrawn. A seventh request will be discussed Wednesday night after the third article on the special Town Meeting warrant.
After asking a handful of questions, Town Meeting approved the main motion, which asked to reserve for appropriation $2 million from fiscal year 2026 receipts. That $2 million was parsed out into five buckets for open space and recreation, historic resources, housing, the budgeted reserve, and administrative expenses.
In other CPA requests, $2.2 million for the Chenery Park Renovation was approved by a vote of 222-5, with one abstention.
“It really is kind of a desperately needed project, and the kids really do need to have some functional play equipment,” said Precinct 6 Town Meeting member Erin Rowland.
Town Meeting also approved funding for two projects at the Town Hall campus. The first, $605,396 for restoring elements of the Homer Building, was approved by a vote of 222-7, with six abstentions. The second, $825,000 for restoring a failed retaining wall at Town Hall, was approved by a vote of 231-6, with four abstentions. Both were presented by Facilities Director David Blazon.
Finally, the town meeting approved a $650,000 appropriation for the pre-development planning for the redevelopment of Belmont Village. Matt Zajac, deputy director for Planning at the Cambridge Housing Authority, told Town Meeting that the complex, built in the 1940s, has never seen substantial renovation. Minor improvements were made in the 1990s, but the site is presently in fair to poor condition.
Given the substantial support the federal government typically offers for public housing, some concern was raised about the reliance on federal dollars going forward.
“Given the current administration, there is an enhanced risk of changes at the federal level,” Zajac responded. “However, the federal resources the project seeks to use are ones that have largely been insulated from cuts. With that said, there are, of course, unknowns with the current administration that we seek to monitor.”
Town Meeting adjourned at around 10:30 p.m. and will continue Monday, May 19 at 7 p.m.
