To the editor:
As a town resident living near Minuteman High School, I have always considered the high school a very good neighbor. Minuteman runs a fine program, which serves four to six Lincoln students each year. The superintendent’s house is on Mill Street in Lincoln, so he has every reason to join with Lincoln neighbors in protecting the tranquility and scenery of an area dominated by the landscape of Minuteman National Historical Park.
Under the current arrangement, Lincoln receives a small direct benefit from Minuteman High School, but also bears a correspondingly small portion of the school’s costs. However, this relationship could be thrown completely out of balance by Minuteman’s new building proposal, with dire implications for the town’s budgeting process.
Minuteman High School proposes to either renovate its existing structure or build an entirely new structure. More specifically, three proposals are under consideration: (a) renovate the existing building, (b) renovate and extend the existing building, or (c) build a new structure. The first two options would not affect Lincoln residents much because the existing structure is in Lexington. The new building proposal would have a significant impact on Lincoln because Minuteman High School proposes to build the new structure in Lincoln.
According to Minuteman High School’s estimates, the renovation and extension plan would cost Lincoln residents roughly $45,000 annually, or $18.00 per household annually, while a completely new building, located in Lincoln, would cost Lincoln residents roughly $40,000, or $15.00 per household. Minuteman High School suggests that Lincoln residents should prefer an entirely new structure in Lincoln, because it is cheaper.
But Minuteman’s cost estimates are incomplete. Building a new structure in Lincoln would be by far the most expensive option for Lincoln—and, paradoxically, would likely put Lincoln in the position of subsidizing commercial development in Lexington.
The reason the new building option is the most expensive is easy to see. Moving Minuteman High School into Lincoln would significantly increase the public safety budget of a small town like ours. High schools can sometimes present some of the most persistent law enforcement issues—from drug and alcohol use to violent assaults. These would all become problems for the Lincoln public safety department.
To get some perspective, Sudbury has one police officer assigned full time to Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School and receives 150-200 calls per year from the high school. Assuming that these calls require at least two additional police officers, a conservative estimate of the Sudbury police assignment to the high school would be on the order of two to three full-time officers per year.
If moving Minuteman High School into Lincoln required the assignment of an equivalent level of police staffing, probably a conservative conjecture, the estimated savings to Lincoln from the new building proposal would evaporate, leading instead to an additional expenditure on the order of $600,000 per year for the town. A more realistic estimate of the additional cost would be higher still because it would have to include fire department calls, too.
Lexington, with a much larger population and tax base, can easily bear, as it now does, these special public safety costs attributable to Minuteman High School. Lincoln cannot, without significantly increasing its tax base.
Since the space in Lexington now used by Minuteman High School would likely be converted to commercial use to satisfy Lexington’s pressing need for more tax revenue, the new building proposal would involve Lincoln subsidizing a huge commercial build-up right across the street from Minuteman National Park.
Lexington sends 10 times the number of students to Minuteman Tech than Lincoln does. It seems to follow that Lexington, a much heavier user of Minuteman Tech’s fine services than Lincoln, should also bear a corresponding share of its costs. That is the way it stands now, and how it should remain.
Sincerely,
Keith Hylton
5 Oakdale Lane
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