government

Lincoln’s Annual Town Meeting set a non-pandemic record for brevity, wrapping up in under three hours as every warrant article was approved by unanimous voice vote in a rare controversy-free edition.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the March 29 meeting was the confluence of past and future. It started out with a demonstration of the new voting clickers and later moved to a reenactment of Lincoln residents debating at a 1775 Town Meeting whether to allocate money for the war that many saw coming (see related story and “My Turn” piece).

Votes approved funding to buy the clickers last year and were thrilled on Saturday with the instant tallies during a test run, when they were asked to indicate whether this was their first Town Meeting or not (result: 149 no, 24 yes). They also tested the multiple-choice function. Ranked-choice voting will be an option in the future.

Saturday’s vote means that “we can add clickers to the list of techniques that the town moderator can use to ask for a vote,” Select Board member Jim Hutchinson explained. Voice votes will be the first go-to method and standing votes are still an option, but it’s at the discretion of the moderator. The only substantive and unavoidable change from traditional vote-counting is that voting by clicker is anonymous, so attendees can’t see how their neighbors are voting on an issue.

Hutchinson also encouraged officials to use the clickers to get a sense of attendees at future Town Meetings and those of boards and committees even if it’s not a formal vote. “We believe this is a good way to get more feedback from residents,” he said.

Budget

Revenues and expenses will grow by 7.9% in the budget approved for fiscal 2026. However, property owners will see a tax increase of only 0.9%, largely due to the Finance Committee’s use of $902,000 from free cash for tax relief. It’s a big change from 2020, when the tax rate ballooned by 14% due to borrowing for the school renovation project. “Preferred items” that were approved in addition to the FY26 base budget included a new police officer (the first in 25 years) and a part-time administrative assistant in the Planning Office.

Future town budgets will be more unpredictable than usual, given the “sweeping and rapidly evolving” presidential orders on public health education, the environment, immigration, and more, said Select Board Chair Kim Bodnar. Pending the outcome of a flurry of legal challenges, “we have insufficient information to warrant making changes to budget and programs” in Lincoln, but the town will need to “evaluate what we need to do to maintain compliance with federal laws… while remaining true to the town’s vision statement and commitment to keeping Lincoln a welcoming community for all our residents, students, staff and visitors.”

Town Meeting Study Committee

Andrew Pang reported on the work of the committee, which was formed after last year’s controversial Annual Town Meeting (ATM) debate and vote on Housing Choice Act rezoning. Among its accomplishments so far:

• The pre-ATM moderator’s meeting, seen by some as “proverbial smoke-filled room,” is now hybrid for greater transparency.
• Publication of a Town Meeting primer
• A two-minute timer visible to those who speak at the audience microphones, though by law, the moderator reserves the right to allow speakers to go longer. The group is also working on improvements to the audiovisual technology that’s used when an overflow room such as the Reed Gym is used.

Pang acknowledged that there have been “perceptions that differing viewpoints were not welcome” and said that the committee is “working on digesting and assimilating those comments [and will then] develop criteria and rules.” Other suggestions that the group is studying are having separate sessions for Town Meeting debate and voting; allowing remote participation in debate, which is complex from a technical standpoint. Remote voting is not permitted by state law, nor is absentee or early voting, he noted. Most would agree that boosting Town Meeting turnout is desirable, though Lincoln had the highest average rate in the immediate area in 2014-2023 (8.4% of registered voters, vs. a low of 3.7% in Bedford).

Pang urged residents to offer feedback on how Town Meeting went using this website, which the committee will consider as it reviews the primer and makes future recommendations. They expect to issue its final report to the Select Board in October and to residents at the November State of the Town meeting.

Water Enterprise Fund

Voters approved a bond issue of $6.79 million to fund Water Department projects, chiefly a water main replacement through the center of town for $6.2 million. Department Superintendent Darin Lafalam recapped his March 4 public hearing presentation outlining Lincoln’s aging water main infrastructure as Water Commission member Steve Gladstone noted that the town has never replaced an entire water main. Bids just came in for the first of two phases from the top of the hill on Bedford Road down Lincoln Road to Ballfield Road and were in line with estimates; work on that piece will take place this summer.

The bond interest and principal will be repaid from water rates, which rose 10% this year and are slated to do the same in the next two years as well.

Zoning amendments

Voters also approved zoning bylaw amendments to have the town’s rules on accessory dwelling units (ADUs) follow recent changes in state law. Those changes relax the rules around units of up to 900 square feet, though the town retained additional restrictions on units from 900 to 1,200 square feet. ADUs up to 900 square feet are now allowed by right with no special permit required.

Asked why the town didn’t simply adopt the same rules for all ADUs rather than keeping different ones for larger units, Planning Board Chair Margaret Olson said, “the Planning Board prefers to make small incremental changes [because] it’s extremely difficult to get regulations right.” It may make further changes in the future; “we’ll see what happens… but we’re making the minimum necessary changes today.”

(This information is provide by Assistant Town Manager Dan Pereira.)

Annual Town Meeting is this Saturday, March 29. The Town is providing as much information as possible in advance to ensure a smooth experience for all.

Website

Please visit our Annual Town Meeting web page for up-to-date meeting information. It contains links to meeting procedures and materials, services, and background on the key articles being presented. 

Logistics

• Voter check-in begins at 8:30am and Town Meeting begins at 9:30am sharp!
• View our Ballfield Road parking map, which highlights available parking locations as well as the entrance to Town Meeting, so you can plan accordingly. 
• View our auditorium seating map, which provides an overview of the room layout and handicap seating as well as public microphone locations. Microphones can also be brought to your seat if you are unable to get to a microphone.

New this year — voting clickers

Electronic voting devices or “clickers” will be introduced this year in order to expedite hand counts, if necessary.

• You will receive your clicker when you check in, along with your voter card. You need both to vote.
• Article 3 will include a few fun questions to demonstrate the electronic voting process.
• You should not leave the school building with your clicker! When you leave, please drop your clicker in a designated receptacle.
• If you want to leave and return later, please return your clicker to an attendant at check-in and they’ll provide you with a “clicker ticket,” which will allow you to get a new clicker when you return.

Food

• Coffee and treats will be served by the Lincoln Girl Scouts throughout the duration of the meeting.
• Twisted Tree Cafe will be offering lunch in the school cafeteria; view their menu here. We are planning a 45-minute lunch break at some point around midday.
• If you are new — or still feel new — to Town Meeting, please join the Newcomers Lunch Table in the cafeteria, sponsored by the same IDEA Committee that organized the Newcomers’ Party in January. We will be glad to see you! Look for the blue tablecloth and friendly faces.

Services

• We have reserved parking close to the entrance for handicap and mobility-impaired residents. 
• Assisted listening devices are available — just approach AV personnel at the console in the middle of the auditorium and they will assist you.

Broadcast

The meeting will be broadcast (for viewing only) on your local Cable TV channel (Comcast Channel 8/Verizon Channel 33) as well as on the Town of Lincoln TV website.

The Finance Committee is proposing a budget of $53.2 million for fiscal 2026, an increase of 7.9%. Residents will vote on the budget and other matters at Annual Town Meeting on March 29.

Property tax revenue is expected to rise from $33.80 million to $34.69 million, and local receipts (motor vehicle excise taxes, service and permit fees, etc.) are projected to go up by 67% ($2.33 million to $3.90 million).

Expenditures will remain fairly stable, with one major exception: the FinCom plans to add $4.07 million to the stabilization fund, whereas it did not allocate anything for that purpose in fiscal 2025. This allocation will help restore much of the $4.75 million that was used last year to reduce the amount that will be borrowed for construction of the community center. Capital expenditures sought include $1.40 million for Community Preservation Act projects and $1.05 for Capital Committee requests (see tables below). Details on the proposed budget can be found beginning on page 1 of the PDF (browser page 8) of the Financial Report and Warrant.

The Finance Committee will host a virtual Q&A session on the proposed FY26 town budget on Tuesday, March 25 at 7:30pm (Zoom link here; meeting ID is 849 2072 7318, password is fincom). To keep Town Meeting as short and focused as possible, the committee hopes to address comments and questions in this virtual Q&A session before the in-person gathering. Click here to see a video of the February 25 budget presentation.

Click on the charts below to see larger versions.

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Proposed Town of Lincoln budget — fiscal 2026

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Capital expenditures

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Community Preservation Act expenditures

Thanks to passage of a state law late last year, the town may now publish legal notices in the Lincoln Squirrel without also having to pay for publication in a print newspaper. 

State law requires that certain legal notices must be published in a print newspaper, including municipal notices of upcoming public hearings, requests for bids, etc., as well as property foreclosures, notices informing creditors of dissolving corporations, etc. This closes off an important source of potential revenue for digital-only news sites like the Lincoln Squirrel and does a disservice to residents who no longer get their information from hollowed-out legacy news sources.

However, Lincoln is now exempt from the print requirement. Go to the Legal Notices tab at the top of every Squirrel web page to see the notices for the last 12 months, including this one from the Lincoln Historical Commission. Note that this part of the website is always available to nonsubscribers as well as subscribers.

This all started with a citizen’s petition that was circulated by the Lincoln Squirrel and approved by residents at Town Meeting in March 2024. The Select Board subsequently sent a home rule petition to the state legislature, which approved House bill H.4664 (sponsored by Assistant House Minority Leader Alice Peisch and Carmine Gentile, and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Mike Barrett of Lexington) late last year. It was signed by Gov. Healey in January 2025 — an unexpectedly swift process. In the same session, similar bills for Arlington, Bedford, and Franklin were approved (learn more here). Many thanks to our state legislators, town officials and residents for their support!

Meanwhile, the Squirrel and other members of the Eastern Mass. News Alliance are still pushing for a statewide law change so other towns don’t have to go through the same home-rule petition process. It’s not easy because the newspaper industry is understandably fighting to preserve one of their last steady sources of revenue, but it’s probably only a matter of time in a rapidly evolving media environment.

Lincoln Historic District Commission 

The Historic District Commission will hold a virtual online public hearing at 7:30pm on Tuesday, March 4, 2025, to consider the application of 68 Conant Rd., M/P 168-1-0, to replace several windows and add a new one. Anyone wishing to be heard on this matter should be present at the designated time and place. 

 

The process of examining Lincoln’s open Town Meeting — “democracy in its purest form,” as Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden said — kicked off on September 16 with two sessions where dozens of residents offered initial feedback.

Anyone who wasn’t able to attend may offer their feedback on this Padlet page, which asks what currently works well about Town Meeting, what could be improved, and topics that the Town Meeting Study Committee (TMSC) should explore. Links to the slide deck and a recording of the morning Zoom sessions as well as the Padlet link can be found on the TMSC web page. The Padlet page — which already includes transcribed comments from both of this week’s sessions as well as those submitted to the Select Board since last spring — will stay open for comments and questions until Friday, Sept. 20.

Holden outlined some basic procedures as well as changes in recent years that have made Town Meeting more efficient, such as putting more warrant articles onto the consent calendar for a single vote, and rolling multiple budget presentations from each major cost center into a single presentation by the Finance Committee.

Town counsel Joel Bard addressed the legal aspects of some ideas that have already been floated since last spring’s controversial Annual Town Meeting:

1. A split-session Town Meeting where issues would be debated on the usual Saturday and then all votes would take place at another gathering several days later — state law doesn’t prohibit this, but Lincoln’s bylaw would have to be amended, Bard said. Voting would be handled the same way as it now is: in person, either by voice vote or clickers. Although money has been approved to buy clickers, exactly how they will be used (for example, whether or not votes will be anonymous) is yet to be determined. Also, it’s up to the moderator how each article’s vote will be conducted; “it’s much faster to have yeas and nays when the outcome is clear” for relatively noncontroversial issues, he said.

2. Voting at the ballot box rather than in person — this isn’t possible without a change in state law, Bard said: “Then it becomes an election that’s highly regulated, as well as extremely  inefficient and time-consuming.”

3. Remote participation — This, too, would require a change in state law. Since the pandemic, the state has allowed remote attendance and discussion at meetings of boards and commissions, but not Town Meeting. It’s possible to have some attendees in a different collective location, such as the gym or some other overflow location, “but not remotely dialing in from home,” Bard said. And if there’s an insoluble technical breakdown preventing those in a secondary location from hearing and participating, the entire Town Meeting must be adjourned. “That’s a serious consideration,” he noted.

The Select Board will vote to confirm the TMSC’s charge at its September 30 meeting and begin accepting applications to serve on the committee in the first half October (an application form will be posted on the TMSC web page). Candidate interviews and appointments will happen late in October and meetings will begin in early November. A final report and recommendations are expected in fall 2025.

Town officials and residents will begin public discussions about how Town Meeting is conducted and how might be improved at a two-session kick-off forum on Monday, Sept. 16 with a virtual morning session at 8 a.m. and an in-person evening session at 7 p.m. in the Lincoln School’s Learning Commons.

The call to reexamine the town’s collective decision-making process arose after the March 2024 Town Meeting where an unexpected amendment to the proposed Housing Choice Act was made on the floor. Controversy swirled over who was allowed to address the audience, and when and where they could speak. There have also been voting confusion and delays at recent Town Meetings.

At the September forum, residents will be invited to share thoughts about the processes leading up to Town Meeting and the protocols of the meeting itself. “Feedback from these sessions will help us identify what is working well, what needs improvement, and the key issues that our soon-to-be appointed Town Meeting Study Committee (TMSC) should consider,” Select Board and Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden wrote in a postcard mailed to Lincoln households. “This work will be conducted with respect for the tradition and norms that have served Lincoln well since the first Town Meeting in April 1754, a commitment to equity, and with recognition that Town Meeting should continue to adapt to the needs and desires of Lincoln’s current residents.”

The town has launched a TMSC web page that thus far includes links to existing town rules, materials from the Massachusetts Moderator’s Association, studies by other towns, and a 2009 report in Lincoln town governance.

Those unable to attend either session on September 16 may email comments to TMSC@lincolntown.org.