The Lincoln Squirrel will publish more stories about the March 19 Town Meting in coming days. Meanwhile, here are a few other warrant articles that were discussed.
Ballot questions
There will be two questions on the March 28 town election ballot that were also discussed at Town Meeting:
- A request for $320,000 for the Department of Public Works to buy a new street sweeper ($215,000) and an articulated loader ($105,000). The loader is a smaller vehicle used for plowing sidewalks and bike paths as well as trimming roadside vegetation.
- A request for a Proposition 2½ override to pay for Lincoln’s share of the new Minuteman High School. This question, which was placed on the ballot pending the town’s decision on whether to withdraw from the Minuteman school district, is now moot. Residents voted at a February 23 Special Town Meeting to withdraw. Though the town will still have a representative on the Minuteman School Committee until July 2017, it will not be liable as a member town for the new building’s capital costs.
Conservation Commission funding
A motion to allow the Conservation Commission to spend $25,000 on several land stewardship projects passed at Town Meeting, though not without some “nay” votes.
The money, which comes from fees paid to the town by people who leave conservation land for agricultural purposes, will go toward repairing the muster field colvert so it can safely hold a tractor and emergency vehicles, as well as the upper Browning Field bridge. Other projects covered by the appropriation are plantings to screen the solar panels in Far Meadow near Lincoln Woods, setting up six deer “exclosures” for studying how vegetation burned in last year’s fire near Sandy Pond; doing an inventory of invasive Japanese knotweed; and controlling phragmites that grow in wetlands, especially on the Sudbury River.
It was this last project that caused some controversy, as several residents objected to possible use of chemicals to kill the phragmites. Conservation Commission chair Peter von Mertens said the preferred method would be to cut the phragmites and then cover the area with light-proof cloth to prevent regrowth, but Conservation DIrector Thomas Gumbart acknowledged that herbicides are also an option.
Right-to-farm bylaw
The town passed over an article that considered amending the 2011 right-to-farm zoning by-law to add parties who are permitted to farm by right in Lincoln and to add agricultural uses permitted by right on parcels of less than five acres.
The Agricultural Commission (AgComm) hoped to propose the changes because more and more people are doing farming on a small scale, such as raising chickens in their backyards. The group drafted some amendments to the by-law but decided to get more community input on what sort of limits there should be, such as whether there should be a limit on agricultural uses or revenue for homeowners on properties under five acres.
“We want to craft it so it won’t alarm people and so we have the proper parameters put on operations,” AgComm member Ari Kurtz said the day after Town Meeting. The AgComm has a study group examine the current agricultural by-laws, and Kurtz invited anyone interested in joining the group to email agcom@lincolnton.org.
Currently there are 16 commercial farms in Lincoln on about 500 acres of land, he said. Lincoln farms raise fruits and vegetables and livestock including chickens, cows, sheep, alpacas, but also wine grapes, horses for riding and therapy, and bees for honey and wax.
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