Pure(coat) Surprise: BMLD Snubs High School

Only hours after winning School Committee approval to build on a site at Belmont High School, a committee seeking to find a site for a much-needed electrical substation turned around and voted unanimously  to begin negotiations with the owners to purchase the Purecoat North manufacturing site adjacent to the High School location.

Robert McLauglin, the Belmont Municipal Light Department's Site Selection chairman, said the decision, made by the committee Monday, June 12,  to pursue the industrial location "came down to various costs" of each site.

"There were a lot of factors in our decision," said McLaughlin, adding that the committee's reasonings will be discussed in greater detail when it meets with the Board of Selectmen in the near future.

While unwilling to go into detail about his committee's decision, McLaughlin said that he believes the Purecoat site "will have overwhelming support by the town."

Past public statements by McLaughlin indicate it will cost the BMLD between $6 to $7 million to purchase the Purecoat site and five to six years to build and then begin substation operations.

McLaughlin may have indicated why the committee selected the industrial site earlier in the day. Once purchased, the BMLD would only need a third of the site for the substation.

The remaining two thirds of the site, McLaughlin has said, would then be sold to either the town or into private hands with the net profit returned into the hands of BMLD customers.

 McLaughlin has noted that town demands to site municipal departments could play into the hands of the BMLD.

He has suggested in the past that the proposed location could be a lynchpin in a series of swaps that could see the Light Department, Department of Public Works, Police Station, town ice rink and Library move to new locations.

Monday's decision comes after the the BMLD's Light Department's 115 kV Site Selection Committee in the past three weeks strongly urged the School Committee to hold a special session to discuss lingering issues of land title and the department's ability to transfer the small portion of land abutting the High School's tennis courts.

"We completed our responsibility by voting to approve the transfer in an open and transparent way," said School Committee Chairwoman Ann Rittenburg. 

Rittenburg pointed out that the BMLD will now need the approval of both the Board of Selectmen who also sit as the Light Board and the Town Meeting which will meet in the Fall.

If the BMLD had approved construction on the High School site, the schools would have received a new Turf field, 5,000 square feet in temporary storage space, repaving the high school's parking lot (while losing about 20 spaces) and rebuilding eight tennis courts.