Belmont School Committee 'Kills' New Library Proposal

By a 5-0 margin with one abstention, the Belmont School Committee effectively killed the proposed $18.5 million town library project by voting not to transfer a portion of a playing field at Belmont High School that would have become the site of a new Belmont Public Library.

The vote requires the town to return a $7.5 million state grant the Belmont Board of Library Trustees received last year. 

What at times was an emotional meeting before approximately 40 residents, the School Committee members expressed reluctance to end nearly three years of active work by the Belmont Board of Library Trustees to construct a new 42,000 square foot library across Concord Avenue from the present site.

But as a tearful Pascha Griffiths noted just before the vote, the committee, as stewards of the schools, was just not comfortable handing the land – which currently is home to the High School's softball field – to the trustees without a concrete plan for replacing the playing field.

Matt Lowrie, chairman of the Board of Library Trustees – who read a history of the proposal and options before the School Committee – came to the meeting with a last minute proposal that would have created a field near the Hittinger playing fields at the entry to the Belmont High School parking lot.

But as School Committee member Kevin Cunningham noted, that concept was not an official proposal before the board.

Lowrie said that it could be between five to seven years before the state will next be providing grants to communities for new library buildings.