Given the Select Board’s response to the July 23 special Town Meeting, it is fair to ask about the state of democracy here in Belmont. Is democracy dead here? Not yet, but I worry it’s been gravely wounded by a board that treats our most sacred civic processes as mere suggestions, centralizing power in ways that erode trust and mock community input.
Belmont’s democracy is based on the idea that Town Meeting is the direct voice of the people, where we gather, debate, and vote to guide Belmont’s direction. On July 23, 2025, we did just that—passing Article 3 with nearly 70% of the vote to retain the James P. ‘Skip’ Viglirolo Rink name for the new $32 million facility.This debate was not a shotgun exercise—it was duly filed, debated, and passed a mandate to preserve history and honor Skip.
This brings me to the most deeply troubling part—the refusal of the Select Board to respect the democratic process. At their Aug. 11 meeting, rather than honoring the vote, they opted to prepare naming proposals for Aug. 25, under their hastily adopted July 7 Capital Asset Naming Policy. This policy—imposing sunsets on names, requiring unanimous board approval, and mandating a one-year wait post-death—serves as a bureaucratic shield to override democratic will.
That the board sought to dismiss Town Meeting as advisory, reducing our debates to pointless theater while whining about activists barraging them and a “backlog of bad decisions” is antidemocratic. Are we simply voiceless spectators in our own town, our input discarded to suit the board’s preferences?
This isn’t leadership—it’s an arrogant consolidation of authority that risks autocracy, where process trumps people. My friends, we deserve better than this.
Paul Joy, Harvard Road