Details: By Susan Gilbert; Category: Selectboard summaries; 06 April 2023; 06 April 2023; Last Updated: 06 April 2023; Hits: 10

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UPDATED Nov. 29: Arlington's tax rate for next year will drop slightly, but taxes are projected to rise.

The Select Board has unanimously approved an $11.21 tax rate for 2023, a decrease from last year’s $11.42 rate. The vote was 4-0 (Diane Mahon absent.)

Selectboard logo, May 20, 2019

At the same time, a Nov. 21 presentation by assessors shows a 6.3-percent increase in taxes considering all property categories.

The town is also not shifting any water-and-sewer debt onto the real estate tax this year.

The state Department of Revenue still must approve the tax rate.

To download the full tax rate report, click here >>

“As property values go up, the tax rates go down, and property values are going up rapidly,” said Director of Assessments Dana Mann. “The new average assessed value of single-family homes in Arlington is $912,385, resulting in an average tax increase of $582,” added Mann.

The assessors' report provides an average tax for a single-family home for these years: 2019, $8,470; 2020, $9,126; 2021, $9,405; 2022, $9,646; and projected for 2023, $10,228.

This new tax rate is still significantly lower than that of neighboring towns Lexington, Winchester and Belmont. That was shown in a bar graph displayed during the presentation.

'Well-managed'

Mary Winstanley-O’Connor, Board of Assessors' member, said that town property values continue to rise because the town is well managed by the Select Board, town manager and Town Meeting.

Watch the Nov. 21 meeting on ACMi:

The board also unanimously approved (4-0) no residential exemption or separate tax rate for commercial, industrial and personal (CIP) property ― a single tax rate for everyone―because of the ratio of residential to commercial property in town, as Mann recommended. In Arlington, approximately 95 percent of properties are residential, and only about 5 percent are CIP.

Select Board member John Hurd said, “This is our yearly reminder of why we can’t have a split tax rate; the high residential rate makes it unfeasible. The only way to absorb the impact from overrides from Proposition 2 1/2 is to find ways for new growth, which in Arlington is only in residential.”

It’s also the Select Board’s policy to have no split in tax rates, Town Counsel Doug Heim said.

Fiscal '23 first-quarter finances on track

“We’re right where we’re supposed to be ― 25 percent in both revenues and expenditures,” said town Comptroller Ida Cody at the Nov. 7 Select Board meeting.

To download the full report, click here >>

“There are some variances on the revenue side, due to the timing of the revenue collection. For example, vehicle excise, due to the timing of revenues from the registry. We’ll see a spike in excise revenue in the spring,” added Cody.

Board member John Hurd said, “These reports help the town get a step-by-step grasp of town finances.”

“I feel the town is in good hands with this tracking,” said board member Eric Helmuth.

Alewife Brook CSO Update

The Select Board at its Nov. 7 meeting acknowledged receiving correspondence about recent progress made by Save the Alewife Brook and its efforts to advocate for “desperately needed improvements to the Alewife Brook.”

To see the letter submitted by Save the Alewife Brook founders Kristin Anderson and David White, download it here >>

Save the Alewife Brook is a grass-roots environmental group ― with supporters in Cambridge, Arlington, Somerville, Belmont and Medford ― that works to address flooding and water-quality problems in the Alewife Brook.

Nov. 10, 2022: Renovation plan OK'd for Veterans Memorial Park

This news summary by YourArlington freelance writer Susan Gilbert was published Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2022, and updated Nov. 25, to add information from the Nov. 7 board meeting. It was updated Nov. 29, to change the headline to reflect the expected tax rise, and to add an ACMi video window.

This reporting demonstrates your donations at work to support democracy here. YourArlington is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.Your contributions are tax-deductible. Donate here >>

Susan Gilbert

YOUR VIEW: Opinions: Roe, Alewife, racism, film, Ukraine, letters, poetry

No. 127: Red Letter Poems 3.0: Performer, audience

Poetry

UPDATED Sept. 9: Steven Ratiner, Arlington’s poet laureate, sought submissions in February 2020 from Arlington residents to contribute to "a rather unconventional, utterly delightful way to inject poetry into the everyday." It was to remain secret until its debut during April’s National Poetry Month. Then the coronavirus hit. In June 2021, he offers Red Letters 3.0.

PUBLISHED: I was asked to write an essay for Askold Melnyczuk’s Arrowsmith Journal about what I learned from the first year of the Red Letter Project. It also became a meditation about the relationship between poet and reader. If you’d like to take a look, here is a link – arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices -- and you’ll also be able to check out the variety of marvelous literary projects that appear under Askold’s Arrowsmith imprint. Enjoy!

Steven Ratiner / David Andrews photo

The Red Letter Poem Project

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)

At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our separate homes, we could still face this challenge together. As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors. Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country. And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.”

Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified. Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.

Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0. For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives? It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy. Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love. Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member? Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces?

Letters: Emailing Advocate & Star? Copy it here; it'll be published first

Letters to the editor

YourArlington's policy about letters to the editor

UPDATED Aug. 13: YourArlington welcomes opinions of all kinds from local residents, including national issues so long as you can draw a local connection. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in June on Roe v Wade must have echoes here, too. Letters are reviewed for fairness, factualness and taste.

letters

This site welcomes letters about any issue that stirs the public mind. Longer opinion pieces are also welcome.

NOTE: When emailing a letter to The Advocate & Star, consider copying YourArlington at the same time. Your opinions will be published sooner.

Please support your view with facts and arguments that attempt to adhere to reason.

You may write on any subject, so long as you try to make a connection to Arlington. If you can't do that, then your residence in town will be a sufficient connection.

Alewife Brook sewage campaign: Dredgery, Globe notices

Environment

Caption: Worst Offender: Somerville’s SOM01A Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Worst Offender: Somerville’s SOM01A combined sewer overflow.

UPDATED Aug. 11: Precinct 13 Town Meeting member Kristin Anderson, who is monitoring the combined sewer overflows into the Alewife Brook, provided this update via her blog, Save the Alewife Brook.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s mention of dredging the Alewife Brook in its response to the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s April 2022 draft scope for the new CSO control plan has revived the discussion about the role removing sediment from the Alewife Brook can play in restoration and flood prevention efforts.

Boston Globe takes note in kayak piece >>

The EPA recommends MWRA include dredging the Alewife Brook as part of the alternatives analysis for the new Control Plan.

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