The State of the Town/Special Town Meeting is this Saturday, Oct. 24. The best resource is the Special Town Meeting web page, where you can lots of information including but not limited to:

• FAQ sheet for the library HVAC proposal
• Agenda
• Warrant
• Motions

Agenda

• 8:00am — Doors open for voters to check in and receive their voting clickers.
• 9:00am — State of the Town meeting. The agenda for the first 45 minutes will include updates from or about:
  • The open space planning process
  • Communications
  • The CCBC and the community center, including the Bemis Hall reuse plan
  • The Finance Committee
  • The Lincoln and Lincoln-Sudbury School Committees
  • The water main replacement project
  • The town’s pavement improvement plans
• 9:45am — Library HVAC system replacement project informational session
• 10:30am — Special Town meeting to vote on the library HVAC system replacement project, with two options: a ground source heat pump system or a high-efficiency gas system.

Other information

• The Ballfield Road parking map highlights available parking locations as well as the entrance to Town Meeting, so you can plan accordingly.  
• The auditorium seating map gives an overview of the room layout, handicap seating, the location of assisted listening devices, as well as public microphone locations. Microphones can also be brought to your seat if you are unable to get to one.
• Voting clickers: the moderator will review instructions on how to use clickers. You may not pass your clicker to someone else to vote on your behalf, or take the clicker out of the building; you must be present in the room to vote. If you want to leave and return later, return your clicker to an attendant and they’ll provide you with a “clicker card,” which will allow you to get a new clicker when you return.  
• Refreshments: coffee will not be served, but there will be free snacks.
• Assisted listening devices are available; approach the AV personnel at the console in the middle of the auditorium and they’ll assist you.
• The meeting will be broadcast in the gym for viewing only, but you will still need to come to the auditorium to comment or vote.
• The meeting will be broadcast via cable TV (Comcast channel 8/Verizon channel 33) as well as on the town TV website.

Lincoln Squirrel stories on library project

• My Turn: Resident questions library HVAC information (October 11, 2026)
• Select Board offers more answers and hears comments on library HVAC (October 8, 2026)
• More information — and questions — about strategies for library HVAC (September 30, 2026)
• Cost estimate for ‘green’ library HVAC system rises (September 15, 2026)
• Options clarified on library HVAC system (July 22, 2026)
• Town gets grant for climate-friendly library HVAC system (June 29, 2026)
• Library HVAC project postponed; 0% tax increase in FY27 (March 13, 2026)
• Bemis Hall closed due to boiler failure; library also needs new HVAC (February 11, 2026)

Based on data collected earlier this year on the condition of Lincoln’s roads, a consultant has recommended a five-year repaving and repair project costing about $20 million, in addition to money already allocated for repairing Bedford Road and Lincoln Road after the water main and drainage projects.

Town Administrator Tim Higgins and Department of Public Works Superintendent Stephen Olson reported the figure in a Sept. 30 memo to the Capital Planning Committee (CapCom). 

A town-wide road-by-road sequence hasn’t been discussed yet, but the first two years of work would involve mostly main roads along with a few neighborhood roads, Higgins told the Select Board on Oct. 18. He was relaying information presented by John Vancor of IMEG, who met with the Lincoln Transportation Coalition on Oct. 15.

The actual estimate was $18.6 million but officials are already assuming $20 million, given the uncertainties over the cost of field that’s used to make asphalt, he said.

The town’s last major pavement improvement program was undertaken in 2010 at a cost of approximately $5.5 million and concentrated on main roads, according to the memo. “At the time, it was determined that the neighborhood road network could continue to be maintained reasonably through routine annual maintenance.” Sixteen years later, the main roads are again in need of repaving, “and many neighborhood roads — which generally did not benefit from the 2010 program — have not been substantially repaved in 30 to 40 years.”

According to Higgins, Vancor said that 9% of Lincoln’s roads need little or no attention, more than 50% need “milling overlay or deeper reconstruction,” and about 17% are somewhere in between. The next step is deciding priorities and timeline in terms of what the town is willing to spend and when. Also to be considered: whether to defer some of the work and substitute “more aggressive maintenance” for some secondary roads, Higgins said.

The town was originally planning to seek funds at the Annual Town Meeting in March so as to begin work in spring 2027, but Higgins said that may no longer be feasible. The Select Board plans to discuss the issue in more detail at their next meeting, but even at this early stage, board member Jim Hutchinson said he would like to see at least two “price points” to present as options for requests to the Finance Committee and Capital Planning Committee (CapCom).

The town has recently been “hoarding” much of its annual Chapter 90 state road maintenance grants to fund the Bedford and Lincoln road work starting next spring, Higgins said. In other years, some of those funds have gone to projects not directly related to road surfaces such as crosswalks and cycling and safety improvements, so future Chapter 90 funds might have to go exclusively toward roadway resurfacing and preventive maintenance, he said.

The good news is that the Water Department has money allocated to offset some of the Lincoln and Bedford Road repairs. In addition, National Grid has offered to pay for some of the Lincoln Road resurfacing work after they do their own gas pipeline replacement project. They have identified Lincoln Road between the library and Ballfield Road as their “top priority” and plan to start work as soon as the water main project is completed in November or early December, working over the winter and finishing by May 2027.

“We can sync up our paving plan with what the gas company may be thinking… so the timing is fortuitous,” Higgins said. 

Meanwhile, the CapCom will be asked to approve a recommendation of $2.03 million for a March town vote for a Ballfield Road/school campus project, which would include not just repaving but also drainage improvements; new crosswalks, sidewalks, and signage; an improved roadside path; removal of the one-way slip lane entrance on the north side of the Lincoln Road intersection; and possible redesign of the Y intersection just before the tennis court, Higgins said.