Select Board ~ Short Takes from the November 23, 2020 Meeting

November 27, 2020

Read on to learn about speaking up about the MBTA’s proposed budget cuts; approving Bedford’s tax rate classification; an update on the Town’s Covid-19 response; and the new Buy Local program.

The Select Board this week approved sending a letter to the general manager of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority contesting the plan to permanently reduce and modify service to Bedford.

Declining ridership and revenue due to Covid-19 prompted the MBTA to propose reducing many routes. The proposal would eliminate Bedford routes 351 and combine Routes 62 and 76. These steps were implemented in the spring, at that time on a temporary basis.

Select Board Clerk Margot Fleischman, Bedford’s representative on the MBTA Advisory Board, emphasized, “There is a very daunting budget gap that the MBTA is trying to close. That being said, some of the changes that are being proposed are really falling disproportionately on people who really don’t have other options.”

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Town Manager Sarah Stanton said similar letters are expected from leaders of Edith Nourse Rogers Veterans Hospital, Hanscom Air Force Base, and the Middlesex 3 regional economic development consortium.

Fleischman said the town also would be negatively affected by an increase in fees for The Ride, the MBTA’s door-to-door service for the disabled and the elderly. She also advised vigilance about the prospects for continuing the MBTA subsidy for Bedford Local Transit.

Bedford’s Tax Classification Hearing

Also at the meeting, the board approved classifying property taxes so that commercial and industrial rates are assessed at 175 percent of the residential rate. Bedford has adopted this maximum classification rate since the beginning of the tiered system.

Ron Cordes, chair of the Board of Assessors, said when including the classifications, all of the mathematical variables result in an average fiscal 2021 single-family residential tax rate increase of 4.1 percent and a 4.3 percent average increase for all properties.

Update on Bedford’s Covid-19 Response

Stanton provided an update on the town’s response to Covid-19, promoting a newly developed way for residents to monitor the spread of the disease in Bedford. Similar to the statewide dashboard compiled by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the town has launched a community dashboard that contains information about local and school cases.  The Town’s dashboard can be found here.

Thanks to a collaborative effort between the Bedford Fire Department, Pro EMS, and the Eli and Edythe Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the municipal employee drive-through testing program was launched successfully on November 23, Stanton reported.

Buy Local #BuyBedford

Stanton also touted the town’s new Buy Bedford Shop Local campaign. This program highlights and promotes local businesses, especially around the holidays for gift-giving. Stanton encouraged people who buy from Bedford small businesses to post their purchases on social media with the hashtag #BuyBedford.

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