A Record of Getting Results

Will has a distinguished record in government, in law and public policy, and in business. Follow links on the About Will page to learn more about Will's record outside Belmont.

In government, as a Belmont Selectman working collaboratively with other town leaders, Will has delivered on his campaign promises, has brought the town to a higher level of fiscal management, and has made a major impact on controlling costs.

Keeping Core Campaign Promises as Selectman

Will has been a person of his word, delivering on the campaign promises that he has made in his three campaigns for Selectman.

• Supporting education -- Will has made a big difference every year in the amount of funds allocated to public schools in Belmont. That's one reason he has the personal endorsement of every member of the Belmont School Committee.
  
• Protecting Open Space -- Will led the effort to prevent excessive development on the McLean property and negotiated the final compromise which permanently protected over 100 acres of open space.
• Building a Senior Center that Seniors Want -- Will's campaign immediately spurred the creation of a leased senior center. His efforts over the past eight years have brought the permanent senior center almost to the beginning of construction. The site and funding are in place and if final design issues can be resolved promptly, construction will begin early next year.
• Controlling Traffic and Improving Pedestrian Safety -- In the years of Will's leadership as Selectman, the town has improved crosswalks across the community and has adopted traffic-calming approaches to roadway construction.
• Revitalizing Business Centers -- Through Will's leadership, the town now has restaurant alcohol licensing which has supported higher quality restaurants in Belmont's business centers.
• Improving Planning -- Will initiated a visioning process for the town and insisted on the hiring of a senior planner. Across town in every business district important longer term initiatives for improvement are moving forward:
  • The Belmont-Trapelo corridor reconstruction project has moved past several major design milestones and is now at the state-federal evaluation stage.
  • Rezoning proposals for Cushing Square are nearing completion.
  • In Belmont Center, a planning group has gathered public input and is preparing recommendations for revitalization.
• Rebuilding Pleasant Street -- Will has fought successfully in a very competitive and constrained funding environment to secure state-federal funding for this project. He has also overcome numerous hurdles to its implementation. Construction is finally under way. Major subsurface work has been completed.
• Collaborating with Arlington and Cambridge to Control Flooding -- Will has led regional collaborative efforts to control flooding. These efforts have led to improved channel maintenance, to better measurement and towards more useful modeling. The collaboration benefits the whole region. The efforts have also identified a possible approach to ending the problem of sewage flooding in Belmont basements -- for many years, this problem was considered unsolvable. Work continues to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the approach, but now, at least, the neighborhood has hope.
  

Improving financial management

Will has a superb background in financial analysis and has made an enormous difference by tackling Belmont's financial issues head-on and working in collaboration with other leaders.

• Introduced multi-year financial planning. Will created the first multi-year operating cost projections for the town in early 2000. This model has now been vastly improved and institutionalized by town staff and committees. It is a now a key benchmark in Town financial decision-making.
• Developed reserve policy. For many years the town lacked a policy on appropriate reserve levels and in the late 90s ran reserves to dangerously low levels. Will worked with the rating agencies and the town's financial advisers to develop a policy which has been unanimously adopted by town leadership.
• Identified town's real capital needs. Will developed a framework for understanding and prioritizing the town's major capital needs. All of the town's major building and infrastructure elements have been professionally studied or are currently under study processes that Will has initiated. As a result, the town has a much better understanding of its financial options and is moving forward to address its highest priorities.
  

Controlling costs and Generating Revenue

With Will's leadership and with the collaboration the Town's Warrant Committee and other town officials, Belmont has made improvements in every area of its cost structure over the past few years. Each of these improvements has required persistence in delicate negotiations.

• Worked with unions and management to limit wage growth. The town makes every effort to treat its employees fairly, but when state aid fell in 2002-4, Will worked successfully with management and union leaders to close the budget gap.
• Consolidated the purchase of legal services, moving from a collection of smaller firms to a larger firm that offers better access to expertise at a lower cost.
• Consolidated public works activities scattered in four departments - cemetery, grounds, highway and water - into a new public works department. Working as a team, the new department has been able to provide better service with its limited resources.
• Eliminated expensive pay-as-you-go indemnity health care plan and consolidated health care purchasing with a single vendor, saving hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
• Eliminated civil service protection for the police chief, making him more accountable to the taxpayers.
• Trimmed the police force from a high of 53 positions down to 46 positions.
• Initiated the consolidation of firefighting force from three stations down to two -- this allows the department to remain effective with limited resources. We have chosen a pair of fire station sites after very thorough and public analysis of all options by a citizen committee with professional planning assistance.
• Invested in energy cost-saving improvements in buildings across town - these investments were made at no out-of-pocket cost to the taxpayers through a company that accepts payments out of the future energy savings.
• Renegotiated lease on our temporary senior center, cutting costs in half.
• Moved to sell town tax-title properties that had remained unused on the books for decades. Three lots have been given over to affordable housing development and the town is well along in the process of selling the last major saleable property to create multiple private residential lots.