Will Brownsberger -- State Representative, Democrat, 24th Middlesex District

It’s not exactly that the bulldozers are starting their engines, but the string of appeals and long-shot funding ideas seems to be running out on the silver maple trees of the Belmont Uplands.

I am interning in Will’s office this summer and recently attended a hearing on sewer flows into Alewife Brook and the Charles and Mystic basins, which provided a helpful status update on projects to improve water quality.   The hearing was to extend the variance allowing for a certain level of Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO) into [...]

I spoke earlier this week with Sue Clippinger, the traffic planner in Cambridge. She said that she was working on getting the application together for a truck ban on Blanchard Road. She said that she had all the necessary data at this stage. She said that she foresaw little objection in Cambridge since most of [...]

After the tragic death of a Belmont child, I have received several inquiries about what could be done to prevent such an occurrence in the future.

Blanchard Road residents have ongoing concerns about traffic congestion, truck traffic and speed.

We are doing a “deep energy retrofit” of our home. It’s a nice time to drive by if you are interested in the insulation process — different parts of the structure are at different stages.

Residents on Blanchard Road between Concord Avenue and Grove Street (which lies in Cambridge, but on the Belmont line), have expressed an interest in having a ban on truck traffic. The challenge is to identify a non-residential alternative route.

Just to keep all informed: I met this morning for about 30 minutes with folks from the Mass Department of Transportation’s real estate division and their legislative liaison. As in my meetings with Verizon, I made clear to them that the currently proposed Exit 59 location is a dead proposal in my mind. They explained [...]

As previously noted, the state Division of Capital Management has terminated Verizon’s lease on the Exit 59 location. Verizon has pushed back on that, but DCAM has remained firm.

The House Ways and Means Committee has released its draft of the FY2011 budget.

The list of cell tower locations in Belmont appears below on this list prepared by the Department of Community Development in May 2009.

The lease of the site for the cell tower at Exit 59 has been terminated, effectively ending the possibility of a cell tower at that site in the near future.

I was disappointed by how our regional infrastructure performed during the most recent flooding event. We had both severe sewer backups and severe stormwater flooding in many neighborhoods in my district. While we have made progress over the last few years, it is clear that we have to keep at our efforts.

For those who focus on the details of flood events, here is a collection of data points from my travels around the Alewife and Mystic from Sunday into Tuesday. It is important now that we assemble observations from this event and learn as much as possible. Clarissa Rowe will be convening a meeting of the Arlington-Belmont-Cambridge Stormwater Flooding Board for that purpose.

The flash news in the Governor’s state of the state address was that he intends to file a budget (due next week) that preserves local aid at last year’s level.

I’ve had conversations with several friends in the Benton library area in Belmont who have sought my advice about how to interact with the town as the town decides what to do with the property.

On Tuesday, the Governor signed into law a bill eliminating any question about the exemption from Proposition 2.5 of the Wellington School bond issue. I am extremely grateful to the Governor, to my colleagues in the House, and to Senator Tolman and his colleagues in the Senate for moving the bill through so quickly.

I had been Selectman in Belmont for only a couple of months, when, in the major June 1998 rain storm, a constituent called me late one night to come see the raw sewage rising out of the sink in his finished basement.

I’ve heard from many of you who have expressed concern for the loss of our Charlesbank bookstore in Belmont Centre. I had a long conversation today with the COO of Barnes and Noble (the chain that owns Charlesbank) and he indicated that there was nothing the community could say to him that would change his decision. Anyone want to start a bookstore in Belmont?

The Governor called me on Thursday with they welcome news that he has decided to allocate federal stimulus funding to expedite the construction of the Alewife Greenway — a great improvement in the bikepath that runs from Alewife Station to the Mystic River.