I read with surprise the new decision by the president of the Belmont Center Business Association, Deren Muckjian, to bar political associations from tabling at Town Day.
Town Day traditionally has welcomed all sorts of tables, whether to inform residents about political organizations in town or other causes they might want to get involved with. This decision is an unprecedented and chilling attempt to limit the political views to which visitors to Town Day are exposed. Tables at Town Day historically have not been, and nothing suggests they would be in the future, sites of protest or contention.
I also question using the quiet, peaceful No Kings Day demonstration as a rationale for this decision. Where is the evidence that the demonstration affected traffic into town center that day? Do we have information from businesses about their volume of sales that day? Were they radically different than any other rainy day? If anything, it seemed as though the demonstration attracted people from other towns, one of whom I had the pleasure of chatting with while in a substantial line at one of our eating establishments after I participated in the demonstration.
The exception for Citizens for Fiscally Responsible Belmont, which is a nonprofit organization that claims to be apolitical but that donated over $15,000 to a recent No Override Campaign, seems a carve-out that is “non-partisan” in name only.
I urge the Belmont Center Business Association to take this up with a full vote of its membership, rather than allowing its president to speak for all its members, and to return to the policies that have been in place for past Town Days.
Mary Lewis, Randolph Street