Belmont Select Board member Mark Paolillo is a money guy, making his living as a principal at the Boston-based tax firm Ryan, LLC.
Being a money guy, it’s no surprise he cites financial success as a high point of his tenure on the Select Board. He has served two separate terms on the body, spanning a total of 12 years. He has decided this is it, announcing he won’t run for re-election in the spring.
Starting as a Precinct 3 Town Meeting representative, through a stint on the Traffic Advisory Committee and later the Warrant Committee, Paolillo says he has loved his time in town government.
“I enjoyed the policy aspects of it. I love the work and really enjoyed being a Town Meeting member of Precinct 3 and then was on the Traffic Advisory Committee for a number of years and then finally was appointed by Mike Widmer to the Warrant Committee in 2006,” he said.
It was during his time on the Warrant Committee that he began to believe Belmont could do better, particularly on the financial side. Equipped with that belief, he jumped into a three-person race in 2010 and walked away a Select Board member.
“As thoroughly frustrating as it can be at times and aggravating, I really enjoyed the policy aspects of it, and I really enjoy making a positive change in peoples’ lives,” Paolillo told The Belmont Voice.
It seems Paolillo has local politics coded in his DNA: Dad was police chief in Cambridge. He acknowledged that isn’t exactly a political position, but a skill at local diplomacy is critical, and his father’s role helped embed the impulse to give back to the community. In Watertown, Paolillo’s brother, Tony, was a Watertown School Committee member for more than a decade.
When Paolillo won his seat in 2010, he started working on what he saw as a critical flaw in the Belmont budget process: The Select Board held a smaller-than-expected role in the process, leaving the heavy lift to the Warrant Committee. There was also a schism between schools and the town itself, he said.
So, along with his board colleagues, Paolillo set about bringing the process back to the executive branch, aiming for what he called a one budget, one Belmont approach.
“I was really proud that we were able to do that and have a more collaborative approach,” he said. “We can disagree [on issues], but at the end of the day, it’s one [budget]. So I was really proud of that,” he said.
He also expressed satisfaction the board was able to push through successful Proposition 2 ½ overrides, which he says were needed to stabilize the town financially. Several new capital projects, including the new Belmont Middle and High School and the new library, were approved during his tenure.
Disappointment can be part of the job. One regret he mentioned: Not pushing hard enough in the mid-2010s for the new library. The Library Trustees made several attempts, but disputes over the location ultimately led to missing out on a large grant from the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.
“Let’s just put it in the corner of Underwood and Concord Avenue and move forward with this grant and build this thing. I don’t know whether it would have been built, but at least we could have moved forward,” he said. “But we ended up having to turn that grant back.”
Paolillo left the Select Board in 2019, he said, to give someone else a chance — a new voice; a new perspective. When the incumbent opted not to run for re-election in 2021, at the height of COVID, Paolillo agreed to another campaign.
He’s hopeful there will be a competitive race this spring, because he said that campaigns inform the candidates about voters’ priorities.
“When I get emails, when I talk to people and I seek people’s point of view, but … you’re really not getting a lot from everybody in terms of what their priorities are. In a campaign, you get that. You get that loud and clear. When you go to coffees, you go to events, people ask questions. It’s fun,” he said.
And in Paolillo’s opinion, whoever ends up in office has a critical goal: Getting the town onto stable financial footing.
“We really need to set the table for the future with an override that is balanced and affordable by most folks in town,” he said.
