Here are some selected questions and answers from town election candidates at the PTO forum held on March 12. More information:
Do you believe boards are obligated to follow the will of the town as expressed through TM votes?
(all candidates)
This question was a reference to the split vote by the Planning Board on whether to recommend passage of Article 3. All the candidates answered yes, “but you have obligation to show the facts in an unbiased way and not put your finger on the scale,” Postlethwait said.
Taylor: “If boards are unwilling to support it, you’re effectively undercutting the whole process” of Town Meeting and the work done by town volunteers who studied the issue and made the recommendation.
Glass: “It’s incumbent on boards to take that [Town Meeting vote] as a direct will of the town.”
Clark: “Yes, of course… [but board endorsement decisions] should be intimately connected with what residents want.”
If elected, what will you do to reunite the town?
(Select Board candidates)
Clark suggested following Brookline’s example in tackling the Housing Choice Act. “They did an extremely complicated, secret-sauce solution — they brought everyone together and forged consensus,” he said dryly. “That’s exactly what I would do if you voted me to the Select Board.”
“I have great faith in Lincoln’s resilience,” Glass said. “This is not the first or last time [we’ll have] difficult conversations. It’s OK to disagree about things; the choice is about how we handle that disagreement. We have to have trust in the democratic process.” She also noted that Brookline and Milton (which reversed an earlier vote to comply with the HCA) have a representative town meeting form of government, unlike Lincoln’s open town meeting.
Do you see flaws with the HCA law?
(all candidates)
Taylor: “There are things that could have been improved in HCA, but there’s really nothing in it you can’t work with.”
Clark: “The spirit [of the HCA] is something Lincoln has complied with for 40 years. We have done in spirit what the state was trying to get us to do.”
Postlethwait: “I have a huge issue with the HCA. The state could have forced developers to have 20% affordable housing. There’s not a housing crisis, there’s an affordable housing crisis.” Lincoln should resubmit an affordable-housing feasibility study to achieve that goal, she added.
Glass: “There were definitely some flaws. There was no provision for affordable housing at all.” After making some adjustments in the law’s specific requirements, “the state has actually done a pretty good job of allowing towns some flex as to how this plays out for them.”
If the HCA doesn’t pass, what process do you propose to bring the community to “yes” by December?
(Planning Board candidates)
Postlethwait recommended disbanding the Housing Choice Act Working Group and form a new group with renters and residents of South Lincoln “to better represent the town so more voices can be heard.” When the rezoning options were being discussed in the fall, she charged, “people dug in their heels and refused” to negotiate.
“Rezoning was being reconsidered all along alongside the HCA. The idea that we suddenly put it together is a misconception,” Taylor said. As for renegotiating for a different option, “I’m less optimistic than Sarah is,” he added. “When you look at [Options] E and C, there are key differences and I don’t know there’s a way to agree on those because it’s pretty fundamental.
“Getting approval from the state is not quick,” Taylor continued. “Even though we have several months, it would be a difficult lift to get there.”
Do you believe Town Meeting is equitable and proper in this day and age? If not, how can we make it so?
(all candidates)
While all the candidates agreed that Town Meeting is difficult for some residents to attend in person (those with small children, those with mobility issues or fear of illness, etc.), they noted that the process is dictated by state law and can’t be changed at the local level.
Clark recommended a change whereby important issues could be voted on at the ballot box and Town Meeting restricted to “other things that didn’t have such a major impact on people.”
Postlethwait urged the town to provide “clickers” for voting at Town Meeting to speed up the process (something that will be discussed on March 23), as well as free child care rather than the $40-per-child cost required by LEAP.
“Town Meeting isn’t equitable. It’s the historical way we’ve run our town governments, which worked pretty well when everyone who came was old white men, but things have changed since then,” Taylor said. “It’s a state-level problem, and it would take a very thoroughgoing deep dive to figure out how to change” the all-in-person format, which is “very inspiring — I would miss it.”
Glass noted that several measures in recent years have streamlined Town Meeting, such as expanded use of the consent calendar and having personations about some warrant articles ahead of time and available online. The only feasible alternative is to switch from open town meeting to representative town meeting, “but you lose your voice that way. When you have everyone in the room discussing those issues, it builds community even when the issues are hard.”
Is the community center a good use of the town’s tax dollars?
(all candidates)
Here the candidates disagreed. Glass said yes, cited the costs of “nothing happening and renovating town buildings. There is no sort of easy, cheap solution for properly taking care of our buildings,” largely because of the town’s stringent building code and ban using fossil fuels in new buildings or gut renovations.
Taylor said he voted for the 75% option in December that “would cover our needs but be more fiscally responsible. But I’m also committed to the town government structure we have. Town Meeting decided and I’m fully behind the choice that was made.”
“I’ll go along with whatever the [March 23] vote is, but if it’s voted down, it could mean a much more modest proposal. I think it costs too much money and can be done in a more frugal way,” Clark said. “We have the highest [per-household] indebtedness of almost any town in the state… Maybe we can revisit what the community center should be.”
Postlethwait agreed. “The Council on Aging & Human Services should be its own building and there are better places for it.” For example, the town preschool moved from the Hartwell building to the renovated school, “and there’s got to be a classroom or two we can use.” Water mains need to be replaced, among other future expenses; “there’s always things we have pay for as a town, and I just don’t think a brand-new $25 million building is the way to do it,” she said.
Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden reminded attendees that the community center funding must win a two-thirds majority on March 23 to pass, as well as a simple majority at the ballot box two days later.