Schools, Light Dept. To Meet On SubStation

The Belmont School Committee will meet in a rare summer and joint session Thursday morning with a committee of the town's electric company to discuss a possible site for a much-needed substation.

But the Belmont Municipal Light Department's Substation Site Selection Committee should not expect school officials to quickly rubber stamp a decision on transferring the land it owns that abuts the potential site.

"The School Committee will not be taking any formal action on the proposal at Thursday's meeting; the meeting has not been convened for that purpose. We aren't at that stage yet," said Ann Rittenburg, School Committee chairwoman.

"Right now, we are all still in the process of assessing the viability of the proposal and determining whether and when things are ready to move to the stage of formal presentation, deliberation, and action," she said.

The joint meeting of the School and the Site Selection committees will be held Thursday, July 8, at 8 a.m. in the Chenery Middle School Community Room, 95 Washington St. 

The joint session comes a week after the BMLD Site Selection committee met and delayed negotiations on the possible purchase of the controversial Purecoat North site adjacent Belmont High School and the commuter rail tracks as the future home of a electrical substation.

The stumbling block remains whether the School Committee has the ability to transfer a parcel of land including part of the High School's tennis court to the Light Department.

Concerns on whether the schools have clear title of the property or state-mandated size requirements the High School will need to meet when seeking grants to renovate the building forced the site selection committee to take a step back and request answers from the school department.

And time is working against the site committee's favorite location.

"We will need a speedy decision from the School Committee by at least Aug. 1," said Robert McLaughlin, chairman of the Light Department's 115 kV Site Selection Committee after the close of the executive session on June 30.

But the School Committee appears that it doesn't want to be pressed on the matter.

"I expect this to be a meeting at which we can all get the most up-to-date information available about the status and viability of the BMLD's proposal to site the substation on part of the Belmont High School campus," said Rittenburg.

"Then, with that information on the table, we can identify any additional information that may be needed or issues that may need to be addressed, before moving forward to a formal consideration of the proposal by the School Committee," said Rittenburg

But McLaughlin is anxious to move the issue out of committee hands and into those of the negotiators.

"We can't hang around and wait for them. This needs to be done soon," said McLaughlin who noted that Purecoat executives will not wait through the summer without some signs of progress. 

But Rittenburg appears willing to make a careful review of the issues.

"When the BMLD is prepared to present a formal proposal to the School Committee for action and when (School Superintendent George) Entwistle is prepared to make a formal recommendation to the School Committee regarding action on the proposal, we will schedule a meeting of the School Committee for the purposes of formal presentation of, deliberation about, and action on the proposal," she said.