This Week in Belmont History: Electricity Sparks Chenery Blaze

Belmont Citizen-Herald

July 16, 1992

Hospital honors Needham

Trustees of both the Mount Auburn Hospital and the Mount Auburn Foundation voted recently to honor the late Daniel Needham, Jr. of Belmont. They renamed the hospital’s central building the Needham building. Needham was an attorney who served the hospital in several capacities – including as chairman of a very successful capital campaign.

Belmont Citizen-Herald

July 13, 1995

Arson didn’t play a role, Chenery blaze electrical

The Chenery had been scheduled to be replaced when a fire destroyed the building. At first, arson was suspected, but then the State Fire Marshall determined that the cause of the blaze was electrical.

Belmont Citizen-Herald

July 16, 1998

Task Force faces quiz on finances

There remained much controversy surrounding McLean Hospital’s development proposal. During a public meeting at the Chenery on July 9, the McLean Hospital Land Use Task Force fielded questions and heard the concerns of those present. The primary concern of those in attendance related to financial issues.

Belmont’s financial consultant John Connery of Connery Associates, and the town’s consultant on marketing, David Vickery of Spaulding & Slye, were present and fielded an array of questions.

Belmont Citizen-Herald

July 12, 2001

Armstrong Ambulance service renewed

The Armstrong Ambulance Service contract for Advanced Life Support was renewed by the Board of Selectmen on Monday. It’s a two year contract with an option to extend for another year.

Fire Chief William Osterhaus pointed out that the town had been dealing with Armstrong for 15 years and had gotten good service from them.

Changing Medicare fiduciary regulations have complicated the system wherein Armstrong gets reimbursed for their services. Armstrong is no longer able to bill Medicare directly. They have asked the 11 towns they work with I the Boston area to bill Medicare and then to transfer the full amount to Armstrong. The necessary negotiations and planning between Armstrong and the towns delayed signing of a contract with Belmont.

Belmont Citizen-Herald

July 15, 2004

Belmont to vote on Baby Safe Havens

Belmont is one of several towns that will vote this fall on a non-binding resolution calling on legislators to allow a woman to abandon a newborn baby to a worker at a hospital, a public safety officer or an emergency medical responder, without fear of prosecution or obligation to identify herself. The Morrisey’s, a Lexington couple, began the Safe Haven campaign after they themselves had participated in the burial of a Dorchester infant who had died from exposure after having been abandoned in a cemetery.

Their efforts have to date had no successful result with legislators, so they have taken their cause to the voting public.