BCF Editor Retires

By Sue Bass

Meg Muckenhoupt didn’t invent the Belmont Citizens Forum Newsletter. It was already nearly four years old when she answered an ad for a new editor. Sharon Vanderslice, who had suggested creating the newsletter and had designed the first iteration, was tired of doing it. The first issue with Meg’s name as editor was Volume 5, #1, of January 2004, quite a while ago. Now she has announced that the last issue she’ll edit is this one, Volume 27, #3, of May 2026.

Meg announced this on February 16. “I am not facing grave illness, and I am not on the verge of moving to another continent,” she said. “It has simply become clear to me that at this stage of my life, it is time to focus my efforts elsewhere.”

In the past 23 years, in addition to editing the BCF Newsletter, Meg has done quite a lot else. She has written at least five books: The Truth About Baked Beans, Cabbage: A Global History, Dorothea Dix: Advocate for Mental Health Care, Sigmund Freud: Explorer of the Unconscious, and Boston Gardens and Green Spaces. Her freelance articles have been published in dozens of newspapers. Her Facebook page shows that she’s a hiker and talented wildlife photographer.

In the early years, Meg wrote many articles for the Newsletter. Looking through my collection, I find a September 2004 article that might have been written yesterday: “Why doesn’t Belmont fix the Concord/Common/Leonard Street intersection?” It was thoroughly researched, as was typical. It included an anecdote from then-Sergeant Kenneth Hamilton of the Belmont Police Department’s traffic department. He said that when the Belmont police had tried to enforce safe driving at the bridge, traffic “was backed up through Arlington and Medford.”  (I hope that’s not a preview of what’ll happen if the town goes through with a plan to put traffic signals on both sides of the railroad bridge.)

Evie Malliris, a longtime BCF board member and Newsletter committee member, called Meg smart and efficient. She said one of Meg’s concerns was making sure the Newsletter was balanced among the topics that are part of BCF’s mission: an issue should not contain three articles about bikes, for example. When the March 2026 issue turned out to be heavy on the costs of adding school children to Belmont’s population, Meg balanced it by writing an opinion piece, “What is a Town For?” about the value of children and young families to the town and the region.

“I think it’s time for someone with a fresh vision for Belmont to have the opportunity to create the BCF Newsletter anew,” Meg said. “I would like to thank the BCF board, our generous authors, artists, and photographers, and my stalwart co-editor Jeff [North] for all their work over the years, and I wish everyone the energy and clarity to see the newsletter into a new era.”

Sue Bass is one of the Belmont Citizens Forum’s cofounders who served on the BCF board and Newsletter Committee for many years. She was also a long-time Precinct 3 Town Meeting member.