To the editor:
This coming Saturday, at town Meeting, we face a serious challenge: maintaining balance. Our community has retained its small-town character, rather than simply becoming another bedroom suburb, by careful planning and discussion and debate with an eye on maintaining balance. Almost 25 percent of our populations are school age children and almost 30 percent of our population is over 60. We raise our children here and then we stay. For the most part, we age in our homes while sometimes moving within Lincoln.
This is not the case in many of the communities around us. We need to think about that as we open discussion at Town Meeting about some very real wants and needs. We also need to keep in mind that about 35 percent of our population makes under $100,000 a year. We are more economically diverse than some might realize. With a sensitivity to that economic diversity, we must continue to invest in our community. And our upcoming Town Meeting will begin a number of critical discussions of how best to proceed. Finding balance that will be the challenge for all of us in, for our leadership, and for our community. This was a theme at an open space plan discussion and bears consideration for all that lies ahead.
We have many exciting opportunities for investment that will enhance our town. We may be investing in a much-needed playing field, plans for a consolidated home for our Park & Rec and Council on Aging programming, and of course our schools. The community campus—the schools and the community center—are at the beginning stages of planning. The potential addition of a playing field at the Wang property is a fully developed proposal. These are immediate needs that require our attention and funds. In addition, ideas for investing in our South Lincoln business district, a potential relocation of our DPW, roadway and bike path projects, more open space, and large land acquisitions all may require our attention and tax dollars in the future.
Finding a way to balance so that we can continue to invest and preserve our small-town character will be a challenge not just to town leadership, but also to all. It will require active engagement—volunteering on committees, attending meetings, providing comments and critiques early in planning processes, and above all, open communication and coordination between all aspects of work. Town Meeting is the starting point. In the future, it will also provide critical decision points in the process determining final projects and in finding and maintaining balance.
Town Meeting matters. Your participation matters this Saturday, March 25. Be there.
Sincerely,
Sara Mattes
71 Conant Rd.
Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.
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