The Lincoln Squirrel

News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

community center*

My Turn: Special Town Meeting was a “fiasco”

By Chris Burns

Fiasco! The word describes the Special Town Meeting (STM) last night for numerous reasons.

1. While polite and professional, there simply were not enough monitors to check in voters. The lines unhealthily snaked through the school and the meeting start was delayed until 7:30 p.m. This is on the Selects and poor planning.

2. The STM was called “to act on the following article… this warrant…” I left at 10:50 p.m. and the vote had yet to occur. This is on the moderator. The moderator is a neutral participant who holds participants to time limits and prevents the discussion from straying from the topic. Clearly, the moderator was overwhelmed since no vote had occurred almost four hours after the 7 p.m. start declared in the warrant.

3. The warrant presented at STM was materially different from the draft mailed to voters. The key difference was the addition of the Hartwell location, which would indicate that only the two designs sent to voters would be considered at a cost of $25-30 million. The warrant was not ready for voting despite 10 years of work. Haphazard warrant preparation is on the Community Center Building Committee (CCBC) and the Selects.

4. The warrant discussion was confusing at best. The Selects said the funded consulting services would include lower-cost projects and alternative sites. This is not in the warrant that they proposed. The Selects then said that the warrant would not cover these issues. The Finance Committee said the warrant had to be for more money to include these concerns. The CCBC said the money could cover these issues. The CCBC said they heard voter concerns about costs and alternative sites, but this was not in the warrant they proposed. An alternative [motion] was cobbled together by voters which was not readable by all voters and included some errors. This was done on the fly with no input from town counsel. Why? Because town counsel was not present for a $300,000 warrant [article] that could lead to as much as $30 million of spending. This is on the Selects and the CCBC. The warrant was not well crafted and the input from town boards was inconsistent.

5. A voter implored citizens to “trust” the people who have worked on this project for 10 years. Trust is earned; it is not given. I hope and expect that future presentations of this project will be worthy of that trust.

Chris Burns lives at 222 Tower Road.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Town gets ready to vote on the future of a community center

After hearing yet more public input on the proposed community center, the Select Board wrestled with the wording of the proposed motion for the November 30 Special Town Meeting amid more discussion of the lower-cost options and even keeping two town departments in their current locations.

Public sentiment on the community center idea has swerved back and forth in recent weeks. Many residents and officials, backed up by numerous studies of space and programming, have noted the need for a facility to house the Parks and Recreation Department and the Council on Aging and Human Services, since their current locations (the Hartwell pods and Bemis Hall, respectively) are in dire need of repair and modernization. Work on the community center idea was suspended during the school building project, with the understanding that the town would put it on a fast track soon after that work was done.

But other Lincolnites, stunned by the ballooning cost of the two design ideas (each now about $25 million) put forth in 2018 and the tax impact of the school project, have urged a “no” vote on the measure to spend $325,000 for project management, design, and engineering consultants to create detailed plans and budgets. 

Originally, the intent was to use the $325,000 to simply flesh out the two concepts developed by Mary Ann Thomson Architects, but with the concerns about price, the current motion now calls for “developing a range of community center design choices and budgets for the Hartwell complex.” Select Board member Jonathan Dwyer suggested early in the board’s November 28 meeting that a lowest-cost option might consist of updating Bemis and the pods, a middle option might include some additional updates, and the costliest option would be fleshing out the two 2018 concepts “with all of the needs and most of the wants.”

However, previous studies have shown that Bemis’s layout, overall size, and parking availability mean that it cannot be made to function safely and effectively as a headquarters for the growing COA&HS — and most agree that the PRD needs to be located on the school campus. Other possible community center sites in town were considered, but cost analyses and voter sentiment at previous meetings showed that the Hartwell site made the most sense as a joint space for both departments.

If the $325,000 is approved, the Community Center Building Committee will direct architects to “develop additional, lower-cost options beyond the two chosen by the town in 2018 and refine all plans with a sharp eye for costs,” CCBC Chair Sarah Chester said at the Select Board meeting where she and others rehearsed their Town Meeting presentations.

An outline of the community center planning and needs was already presented at the first State of the Town Meeting on November 14 (see slides here). However, after hearing the misgivings expressed that night, the committee now plans on Wednesday to “dive one layer deeper at each stage and explain how conclusions were built on one another in an inductive and iterative fashion,” Chester said.

In an attempt to be as flexible as possible, the original motion recommended by the CCBC did not include a stipulation that a community center should be located at Hartwell. But Select Board member Jonathan Dwyer worried that such a motion “muddies the waters a little bit,” since all the earlier discussions had focused on that site as the best choice. Board member Jennifer Glass also expressed doubt that the $325,000 would cover the cost of developing lower-cost options at Hartwell while also looking at other sites in town.

“You can’t say [the vote] is definitely about a community center but that it might not be at Hartwell,” board member Jim Hutchinson said. 

The board concluded that even a lowest-cost option must involve a dual-use building to house both departments at Hartwell rather than simply renovating the pods and Bemis. “The low-cost option is not a community center” if the COA&HS is still headquartered in Bemis, even if that building could be sufficiently improved, he added. 

“If the will of town is Hartwell-centric, the low end might be a pod infill concept [while] pulling the scope back,” perhaps through more extensive reconstruction of the pods which might or might not be linked together, Town Administrator Tim Higgins said. “We could look at the [2018] Thompson concepts with detailed spreadsheets that go over program space room by room and create two columns for ‘need’ and ‘like’.”

“I think there are lots of places where a good architect can come up with a reduction in the scope and size of the building,” such as by eliminating an atrium or making offices smaller, CCBC member Alison Taunton-Rigby said. 

Margaret Olson recommended emphasizing that the 2018 concepts were “at an early stage and contained a great deal of what everyone wanted… A lot of people have asked for a lot of things and I think some of it needs to come out, though I’m not sure what. There’s concern that this has gotten too expensive and we haven’t paid attention to what we really need.”

The Select Board (which was required to vote on a motion to present at Town Meeting) was worried enough about changing the wording of the CCBC’s motion that they asked for input from any committee members who were still watching the meeting on Zoom. Susan Taylor responded that she thought the committee left out Hartwell-specific language because “they were afraid they’d get double ‘no’s because people would think they’re voting on the final design [at Hartwell] even though you keep telling them you’re not.” 

Chester had already left Town Hall after making her representation in person, but she logged on again from home. “After hearing tonight about why we’re focusing on Hartwell, it’s reasonable for us to put Hartwell into the motion,” she said.

If the November 30 measure is voted down, “both organizations still desperately need updated and safe space,” Chester said. Even a minimal renovation of Bemis and the pods will cost millions of dollars, “and everything will be more and more expensive the longer we delay.”

The Town Meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the Donaldson Auditorium. Residents must attend in person to comment and vote, but they may watch the proceedings from home via this Zoom link (passcode: 947551).

My Turn: Community center is an investment in the town just like the school

By Lis Herbert

I am hoping that you already have plans to attend Town Meeting this Wednesday night at 7 p.m. to vote YES to advance a decade of work to build a Community Center for Lincoln. If you don’t, I hope I can convince you to come.

Four years ago, many of us poured a lot of energy into ensuring that a new school would finally be built in Lincoln. If you attended those forums and meetings, and read the discussions online, you will likely remember that a significant number of older Lincolnites agreed to support the school building project in exchange — in some cases quite explicitly — for future support for the community center when it became clear that both would not be approved and built at the same time.

They said, basically, we will invest in the future of education in Lincoln, in a building that we may never step foot in, apart from Town Meeting, if you promise to make a smaller investment in an intergenerational community center that you will surely, at some point in your lifetime, and hopefully with some frequency, enjoy.

Communities that invest in public infrastructure, especially people-focused infrastructure, are stronger, more resilient, happier places to live. And there is no better example of the power of collective investment, energy and ideas than what has taken shape on the school campus. If you haven’t been to see it, I would encourage you to at least walk the perimeter during a school day, and see how transformative it is, how happy the kids and their teachers are, and how proud we should all be that this is where the children of Lincoln get to learn, and that we have invested in this, together.

There are, to be sure, organizations in town that bring people together at different times of the year for specific events — and yet these are, if we are being honest, few and far between. They’re not casual, easy things to pull off, they aren’t spontaneous, you can’t always simply stop by, on a whim.

This is an important vote, for a comparatively small amount of money, that will allow the work of the committee to move forward. This is not a vote to borrow $25 million, or a vote to approve a tax increase. This is a vote to advance the process, for $325,000.

Years of inaction on the school taught us that if we vote to kick the can down the road, even for a couple of years, we should take that $325,000, and probably a lot more, and just light it on fire. I don’t think there is anything we can be more sure of, with respect to the numbers. Voting no also means waiting a long time before we have something concrete to vote on again, and a decade of work and community outreach will evaporate. The Council on Aging will be stuck at Bemis Hall, the Hartwell pods will continue to deteriorate, and we will be back at square one.

I have faith in the committee: they are taxpayers who have paid for and invested in the school themselves, and who want the best for the town. They know, as well as you and I do, that if their proposal is unpalatable it will be voted down. Please let’s give them a chance.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Lincoln Station or nothing at all

By John Carr

The proposed community center at Hartwell is an attempt to move even more school expenses outside of the school budget. The so-called “community center” is largely a Parks and Recreation facility with the stated goal of serving schools. It mixes facilities explicitly meant for the school with facilities that, underused, can be annexed by the school. The voters put a cap on school costs in 2018 and the town should respect us by respecting it.

If we’re talking about a “community” center, why are we putting it where there is no community around it? If the (former) Council on Aging wants space for the aging, why put it where no aging people live? We might as well rent some office space just over the town line in Waltham. Once you have to get in the car anyway it’s not much more effort to go to another town.

One site considered by the 2015 community center report is not in the middle of nowhere: the commuter rail parking lot. The report tried to steer voters away from this location by bundling an underground parking garage to make it more expensive.

Everything changed in 2020. Commuter rail as a transport mode died of Covid. The town-owned parking lot is nearly empty. We can put a building on half of it and nobody will be inconvenienced. We don’t need to replace any lost parking spaces, much less build an expensive underground facility.

As well as now being the cheapest of the six options studied, the Lincoln Station site also has the advantage of being

  • Near shops, so people can combine shopping or dining with community center activities
  • Near Codman farm
  • Near aging people that the Council on Aging is meant to serve

As a more ambitious project we could include affordable apartments to help meet our housing goals. This part could be paid for by CPA funds.

If the town votes for further study, it should limit the options to Lincoln Station and put a hard cap on the cost estimate. And if the cheerleaders for a school annex argue that Lincoln Station is not an option because Saturn is retrograde or some such, then the town should just say “no” to the whole white elephant.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Looking for a community center

By Sally Kindleberger

It has been ten years since the idea for a Lincoln community center was launched. Over this decade, many committees have met, large community meetings have discussed ideas and town meetings were presented with potential plans. Folks at the COA and the Lincoln Select Board have patiently promoted this idea. When it became evident that the Lincoln School needed to be rebuilt, the community center was put on hold.

As a single woman, I took a deep breath and decided to support the school’s efforts, even if it meant delaying the community center. Growing up, I was taught the importance of paying it forward — to always support the younger generation that follows. With the school project, my taxes went up along with other homeowners in town, and though I have never had kids, I was more than willing to support the schools.

The schools are completed and finally, it is time to make the dream of a Lincoln community center come through. I have listened to and read about the concerns and questions of folks in town. Some of them are as follows…

Why do we need a new building?

One only has to enter Bemis Hall to recognize how it no longer serves the needs of a growing and aging population. There aren’t enough private spaces to provide adequate room for counseling or socializing. The air quality in the basement is poor, therefore making large meetings unhealthy. Parking is very limited and it is perilous to cross or back out onto Bedford Road.

What does the Council on Aging and Human Services do? Why is it important?

The role of the COA&HS has always been a great boon to the town, but before I retired, I had no idea what it did. Next time the COA&HS newsletter shows up in your mailbox, take a moment to read it before you toss it into the recycling bin. I think you will be surprised by the plethora of activities that occur. Classes, groups, lectures, plays, films, and trips provide education and entertainment. Outreach across the community is extended to those in need. Among these services are individual therapy, groups which problem-solve, fuel assistance, housing needs, help with water bills and transportation… and the list is always growing.

Why do I need a Council on Aging? I’m not old yet. 

The name Council on Aging can be a real turnoff — a vision of old people nodding off in wheelchairs comes to mind. But our COA&HS is hardly that. The attendees, volunteers, and staff that work at Bemis are energetic and enthusiastic participants. Merging the Recreation Department with the COA&HS into a community center will help to remove old negative connotations and stereotypes.

That is why we need a community center that spans all ages. With careful planning of space and programs, a community center can meet many needs. I would love to see new intergenerational programming evolve. Older adults could perhaps mentor middle schoolers. Perhaps “grand-friends” could forge relationships with little kids. Tutoring and/or game nights could happen and yoga classes with all ages would help to build relationships across the community. Building on the school grounds will make it easier for these connections to develop.

How can we afford a new building?

There are many wealthy folks in town who could perhaps afford to help fund it. Creative thinkers can gather and find ways to lower taxes through private donations. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water.

In closing, much work and planning have been devoted to this worthy vision. We aren’t starting from scratch. As a town, we are creative and thoughtful. Let’s figure out a way to make the community center happen. I have visited several community centers in the surrounding areas, and many are exciting vibrant places while some are small and drab. We need a community center which reflects the vibrant and creative nature of our town —  a place that is welcoming to all — a place where wonderful creativity happens.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: Vote yes to move forward with community center planning

(Editor’s note: this piece appeared in LincolnTalk on November 17 but some figures have been corrected with permission of the writer.)

By Michael Dembowski

The town’s dialogue regarding the proposed community center is engaging, healthy, and vital. However, many of the comments being expressed would be made no matter what the budget — the initial $15.3 million to $16.2 million estimated cost, or the current COVID- and inflation-driven $24.6 million to $26 million. Many townspeople simply don’t want to see additional tax increases, don’t know fully the program needs and current condition of the COA and Parks and Recreation Department, or don’t know of the diligent work of the community center committees dating back to 2012. Many of the suggestions and recommendations being made — whether thinking “out of the box” or being “prudent and cost-conscious” seem to be out of step with the process, uninformed by the work completed to date, or are more direct in wanting to prematurely shut down further town-wide consideration of a community center.

I am surprised at the apparent lack of good faith that those who have been directing this project to date have not thought of (and heard) and evaluated each suggestion offered. Does no one think that the Community Center Committees have not examined Bemis Hall and the Pierce House? Not looked at concurrent uses with the school programs? Not researched relevant program use data and benchmarking from other towns? Not been mindful of costs, budgetary constraints and the community’s reception to property tax increases — especially following the school project?

Voting YES on the next week’s ballot only approves limited monies for the further development of the proposed community center — a process that I would expect would be as transparent and participatory as the school project had been — incorporating the myriad voices and concerns now being expressed while also allowing for the possibility of securing private funds to help offset any future potential tax increase.

We are all privileged to live in this remarkable town — but privilege should prompt responsibility. Lincoln’s uniqueness is inextricably intertwined with its large sized properties, extensive conservation lands, farms and network of trails — all of which are universally appreciated and valued. However, the same lack of population and housing density can make Lincoln an extremely challenging place to live well and thrive in as we age — as we all age.

The community center project embodies a vision that is lost in much of the current dialogue of costs, budgets and potential taxes — one that should be considered in the context of wanting Lincoln to be a community that has the amenities, facilities and services that make it a desirable and more manageable town to live in for all of one’s life.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

My Turn: COA&HS board urges support for community center

By Dilla Tingley

The Board of Directors of the Council on Aging and Human Services is unanimously and adamantly in support of a community center for Lincoln and for the initial funding of approximately $325,000 for the owners project manager and architect for the proposed community center. The need was identified 10 years ago, and we are truly excited now that the school building project is completed and the community center project is moving forward.

The center will provide for the clearly documented needs of Parks & Recreation and the COA&HS but will also be for all residents of Lincoln. We envision a place where citizens of all ages gather for a variety of activities or just to meet and greet. We expect it to create a real sense of community in these isolating times.

The COA&HS has sponsored many successful cross-generational activities over the past few years and eagerly await having the space to expand these activities.

We are pleased to be participating in the Community Center Fundraising Committee whose goal is to aggressively seek donations that will minimize the impact of the project on the Lincoln tax rate.

Dilla Tingley is chair of the Council on Aging & Human Services Board of Directors.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Residents and officials wrestle with options to control costs for a community center

After hearing concerns from dozens of residents about the price tag for the proposed community center, town officials promised to look at lower-cost alternatives if voters approve an initial spending measure later this month.

More than 100 people attended a November 16 Zoom meeting of the Community Center Building Committee (see video here) to ask questions and air their worries about spending an estimated $25 million so soon after completing a $93 million school project. A November 30 Special Town Meeting will decide whether to approve $325,000 for design costs including fees for architects and an owner’s project manager.

Several people suggested crafting the meeting motion to require the architect to come up with less expensive options for voters to consider in addition to fleshing out the two 2018 concepts, and/or specifying a limit on how much the town is willing to spend.

The November 30 vote requires a two-thirds majority to pass. Select Board member and CCBC co-chair Jonathan Dwyer warned that “a ‘no’ vote would halt the process… we really need a ‘yes’ vote to proceed and answer some of these questions.” However, while no one disputed the need for a facility — primarily but not only to house the Parks and Recreation Department and the Council on Aging and Human Services — some argued for a delay. 

“We’ll try to find as economical a design as we can put forth for each of the designs and explore where we can cut as much as we can within reason,” CCBC Chair Sarah Chester said at the start of the meeting. “We all share the surprise and dismay at the projected costs of our two designs and we want to reduce that as much as possible.”

Among residents’ comments:

  • “I’m having a real hard time with the scope of this project and its cost…how can we address the great concept at a much lesser scope?” (Peter Braun, former member of the Select Board Finance Committee and other groups)
  • “I’m incredibly concerned about the cost, which is not to say I don’t think there should be a better space for the community… It seems like we’re trying to build something that’s much bigger than a town of our size really needs.” (Rachel Shulman)
  • Assuming a tax hike of about 4% if the town borrows $20 million, “we are looking at a very significant increase in our taxes.” (Surendra Shah)

At the same time, officials vigorously reiterated the need for new facilities for the PRD and COA&HS, noting that the Hartwell pods and Bemis Hall are old, inadequate, and even unsafe, especially for seniors. Bemis Hall’s plumbing, layout, and lack of sufficient parking and air conditioning are also major problems that can’t be cured by renovations, and COA&HS services and programs therefore must take in several different locations in Lincoln as well. The Pierce House is not suitable for the COA&HS for many reasons (an elevator and other extensive safety improvements required by building code would be needed, among other issues). 

Several studies including the most recent one from 2018 have evaluated the space and programming needs of the two departments and studied other locations in town for a community center, as well as community centers in several neighboring towns for comparison. 

“One of the problems that Lincoln has in benchmarking anything is that we lack scale” due to the town’s small population, Town Administrator Tim Higgins said. “We’re always going to be high” when it comes to per-capita costs for town facilities such as a school or community center.

Another consideration: “The amount of money [you spend] for a building doesn’t mean much unless it’s tied to a specific scope and program,” CCBC member Tim Christenfeld said. In other words, cutting a building’s cost necessarily reduces what services it can offer and what needs it can meet.

Although the two design concepts developed in 2018 are “a good jumping-off point,” Higgins said, “those two options could frame one end of the price point spectrum.” Echoing what the School Building Committee did, the CCBC could direct architects to produce several choices: “one that would satisfy the existing needs and programs, one that would reflect current programs with some enhancements, and the 2018 designs to anchor the far end of the spectrum with comprehensive programming.”

The warrant article for the November 30 town meeting is intentionally vague; the actual motion to be put forward by the Select Board “will reflect the dialogue that’s happened in the meantime,” Higgins added. However, he noted that $325,000 will not cover more extensive  work duplicating what’s been done in the past, such as identifying the needs for a community center or looking at other sites.

“People are talking about the overall cost of the project when what they’re really concerned about is the tax rate impact,” said Dilla Tingley, a CCDC member and chair of the COAHS board of directors. Private fundraising already underway, along with tapping some of the town’s debt stabilization fund and perhaps other sources, means that the actual amount to be borrowed will be less than the full cost of the building.

If the $325,000 is approved, there will be another Special Town Meeting a year from now to select a preferred design option and budget and create detailed building designs. Votes to borrow money to fund construction (with approval requiring a two-thirds Town Meeting majority plus a simple majority at the ballot box) would occur in March 2024.

My Turn: Let’s give the Community Center Building Committee a chance

By Rhonda Swain

In the last few weeks, Lincolnites have engaged in a lively discussion on LincolnTalk about the pros and cons of building a new community center. Some voices urge a “no” vote at the November 30 Special Town Meeting to stop the town from spending $325,000 to hire an owner’s representative and an architect to flesh out the existing community center schematic designs.

To me, the idea of halting the project at this point fails to honor many aspects of the kind of democracy on which Lincoln prides itself. 

  • First, it would simply discard the decade of hard work that resulted in the designs we have in hand today, effectively saying “Everything has changed, so the work of the past is invalid.” This seems short-sighted.  The benefits of a community center have been well-documented and long promised to the residents of Lincoln.  It seems unlikely that things have changed so much that we need a hard stop at this point.
  • Second, it doesn’t give the current Community Center Building Committee a chance to work with professionals to come up with complete proposals on which the town can vote. Approving the expenditure to hire professionals to develop more complete designs doesn’t commit the Town to any design. Property taxes will NOT increase because of this vote. There will be another chance to vote on the final project, with much better information on costs, trade-offs against other town priorities, and property tax impacts. 
  • Finally, shutting the project down now does not give private fundraising a chance to tap into the generosity of Lincoln’s residents who may well be willing to make a significant contribution to the cost of the community center project in order to reduce the town’s portion of the cost and the consequent burden on property taxpayers.

I strongly urge everyone to come out to the Special Town Meeting on November 30 and vote in favor of moving the community center project to the next phase. In this way, we can give residents a chance to get a fair look at what a community center will provide and what it will cost.

Call the Lincoln COA&HS at 781-259-8811 if you need a ride to the Town Meeting.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their letters to the editor or views on any subject of interest to other Lincolnites. Submissions must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Items will be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor. Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Community center discussion dominates SOTT #1

The size and cost of a proposed community center was the focus of the lion’s share of discussion and questions at the first of two State of the Town meetings on November 14.

More than 200 people at one point were on Zoom to hear about that proposal as well as updates on the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, & Anti-Racism (IDEA) Committee and the public schools. Community Center Building Committee Chair Sarah Chester began by recapping the need for the facility based on several past studies that highlighted the increasing inadequacies of the current Hartwell pods for the Parks and Recreation Department (PRD) and Bemis Hall, headquarters of the Council on Aging and Human Services.

“Doing nothing to provide adequate facilities for the COA, PRD, and community organizations is not an option. The physical plants of both Bemis Hall and the pods continue to age, and it makes no sense for the town to continue to expend scarce tax dollars to fix up, patch up and make do with facilities that do not suit their purpose,” the Community Center Preliminary Planning and Development Committee said in its 2018 report.

By including an indoor/outdoor cafe, a community center on the Hartwell campus could be a hub for intergenerational socializing as well as a meeting place for many other community organizations, Chester said. The building would also have ample parking, modern bathrooms (an upgrade over the seriously outdated facilities in Bemis and the pods). The goal is to have the building be net-zero in terms of energy usage as well. She also said that there’s no intention of having the cafe take away business from Twisted Treem noting that the eatery already has a satellite location at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.

At a Special Town Meeting on November 30, residents will be asked to approve spending $325,000 from the town’s debt stabilization fund to develop preliminary schematic design options. Those options will be based on two schemes on which residents were about evenly divided in 2018: a new building northeast of the Hartwell building with a larger green (estimated at $24.6 million in 2022 dollars), or an infill structure north of Hartwell that would encompass renovated pods A and C plus the space in between them ($26 million). Pod B would be used for LEAP in both scenarios. The schemes were created by Maryann Thompson Architects, which also designed the Walden Pond visitor center.

Starting in June 2022, the CCBC visited community centers in other towns, reexamined programming and space needs in the era of Covid, and prepared requests for proposals for an architect and owner’s project manager. Given the recent rise in inflation and interest rates, “we recognize that current economic conditions have changed substantially,” Chester said, and the CCBC will work with the chosen architect to research lower-cost options and reduce the overall price tag as much as possible.

Finance Committee Chair Andy Payne reported that right now, the town has the fiscal capacity to borrow another $30 million. This figure will grow over time as town income and spending increases while debt payments stay flat, so the capacity for additional debt will be about $40 million by 2025, he said. Assuming a bond interest rate of 4.5%, every $10 million of borrowing would add $309 to the median property tax bill for a hike of 1.8%, he said.

The amount to be borrowed will in all likelihood be lower than the construction cost because some of the debt stabilization fund can be applied, Payne said. There is also a “Friends” group in town that is raising private funds to offset some of the expense, Town Administrator Tim Higgins said.

In answer to a resident’s question about operating costs for the community center, Chester said it can’t be known until the design is fleshed out. The building will need a custodian and a receptionist (“a friendly face who knows what’s going on to greet people”), but “putting two staffs together from two energy-inefficient buildings” will realize some savings, she said.

As to the building’s size, Chester said the square footage per person as recommended by the state for Councils on Aging “is about equivalent to our current [proposed] designs” and would amount to about two and a half pods. As noted in Appendices C and D of the CCPPDC’s 2018 report, “every space will be used extensively — there are no blank areas,” she added.

The CCBC invites residents to learn more about the project, ask questions, and provide feedback at its next meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 7 p.m. Click here to join via Zoom (passcode: 570005). 

Anyone who missed the November 14 meeting can watch a recording here.

IDEA Committee

After sorting through 17 proposals from all over the country, the IDEA Committee has settled on two firms, Elite Research and Racial Equity Group, to move Lincoln forward on the DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion)  front. Over the course of the next 18 months, the firms will look at current town practices and policies and do a gap analysis, formulate short and midrange action plans, and identify evaluation metrics to measure progress. 

Consultants hired by many other towns focus exclusively on hiring and management practices, but  “no other town really scoped out what we wanted to do — to include not only town employees but all elected and volunteer board and committee members, and to do so in partnership with all of the other organizations in town that make Lincoln such a vibrant and wonderful community,” Stringer said. “We didn’t want just a 101 course on diversity.”

  • See slides from the State of the Town presentation by the IDEA Committee
Schools

Lincoln Public Schools officials discussed their strategic plan for 2022-23 which includes “establishing a culture that is built upon the intersectionality of social and emotional learning,

Antiracism, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (AIDE), student and adult learning, and fostering strong connections,” Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall said. The idea informs the schools’ culture and “portrait of a learner” — a student who is a collaborative leader, a critical thinker, equity-oriented, and growth-minded. 

School Committee Chair John MacLachlan offered an update on the search for a new superintendent of schools to replace McFall, who is retiring next year. The panel expects to make a hiring decision by the second week in February, he said. The Lincoln-Sudbury School Committee is likewise in the process of seeking a new superintendent to replace Bella Wong. As with the LPS search, there will be opportunities for the community to participate in this process via forums, surveys, and a search advisory committee, LSSC Chair Heather Cowap said.