Lieberman for Belmont mayor

It’s telling that Lieberman supporters have to resort to disinformation to support their candidate. On cannabis, the narrative that CIty Council was going to force cannabis retailers next to schools and houses until Lieberman swooped in to save the day is absurd. I watched that entire meeting, which went past midnight. City Council was exploring cannabis zoning to diversify the city’s tax revenue streams, and there was immense public input with at least a 10-to-1 ratio of public commenters passionately opposing it. All five councilmembers addressed residents’ concerns, and all councilmembers got the message from the public loud and clear and didn’t adopt it. Lieberman likes to take credit for the result, but it’s the citizens who persuaded all councilmembers, not Lieberman.

The claim that Lieberman is the only candidate who listens to resident concerns on open space is similarly false. You can hear from the candidates’ positions on open space here https://youtu.be/HJHWZb7-hrk and read the transcript here: https://waterdogstewards.com/articles/wdoss-endorses-julia-mates-gina-latimerlo-and-robin-pang-maganaris-in-belmont-election

Saying Mates takes “no stand” on trail safety is laughable. During her entire two-minute statement at the Candidates Forum (video above), she takes a stand. Incidentally, during the Candidates Forum, neither candidate “took a stand” on “environmental damage” to the trails, because the City’s expert biology, ecology, and land management consultants recently concluded that our open space is in excellent shape, trails consist of 1.3% of the land, and of that 1.3%, less than 10% have significant erosion, which is easily addressed.

Mates has spent a lot of time talking to people with safety concerns, and unlike Lieberman, she has an intelligent and detailed plan to make the trails safer for everyone, which is a fair compromise. Her plan includes expert-developed physical improvements such as “calming features” that realign trails to slow bicycle traffic, creating places for hikers/bikers to safely get by each other in tricky places, increasing sight lines, and implementing proven safety education programs and trail bell programs so hikers/bikers don’t surprise each other around blind corners. Mates regularly hikes the trails herself with her children; she has a personal stake in making the trails safer for everyone.

Lieberman has no plan, and has only proposed simple-minded ideas such as making “hiker only” and “biker only” trails, which are completely unworkable for an 11-mile trail system. This would turn our City’s 30+ tradition and culture of sharing trails on its head. Hikers, dog walkers, and trail runners will all be crammed onto half of the trails, and all cyclists will be crammed onto the other half. People would be shut off from half of the resource depending on which user group they fall in, and it would ruin Waterdog as a place where you can go for a decent hike, run, or ride. Popular loop routes would be off-limits to everyone. This would also be impossible to enforce because Belmont doesn’t have a park ranger and can’t afford to hire one to enforce trail segregation.

If you want an energetic and creative Mayor with thoughtful and innovate ideas to make our trails safer and city better, vote for Mates. If you want a worn-out 17-year politician who proposes supports simplistic, poorly thought out “split the baby” solutions like King Solomon, vote for Lieberman.

"...growing hiker-biker conflicts on our Waterdog trails..."

Got any data to show that there are any, let alone "growing" conflicts on those trails? (Spoiler alert: he doesn't.)