(Editor’s note: the slide decks from the November 17 and 18 State of the Town forums will be posted on the town website on November 19. The Lincoln Squirrel will publish an addendum to this article with the web address when it becomes available.)
In the first of three State of the Town meetings this week, officials updated residents on public health situation, the town’s 2021 Annual Town Meeting (ATM) and budget, and the school project.
Public health
Since the pandemic began last spring, Lincoln has seen 62 cases of Covid-19 to date, including seven deaths, all of them at The Commons (which, however, has not had a case since May). Contact tracing is “working like a well-oiled machine,” Public Health Nurse Trish McGean said at the November 17 session
One or more vaccines are on the horizon for early next year, but in the meantime, cases are rising in Massachusetts and the rest of the country, so she urged people to maintain their vigilance with masks and social distancing. Once a vaccine is widely available, Lincoln expects to have a drive-through vaccination clinic.
The pandemic will be felt especially keenly during the upcoming holidays. “Gathering together at the Thanksgiving table, even if you have the last names, may not be the smartest idea,” she said. Board of Health member Patricia Miller also reminded the more than 120 residents who attended the meeting on Zoom that anyone who travels to any state except Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Hawaii must fill out a state travel form before returning and get tested.
Annual Town Meeting
Last spring’s Annual Town Meeting was held outside under a tent, and though officials hope the 2021 version can be held in the usual way on March 27, “at this moment in time it seems unlikely,” said Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden. Aside from the endemic the Brooks auditorium is unavailable because of school construction, so it would have to be in Smith gym, or outdoors in a tent again once the weather is warm enough.
With no citizen’s petitions or acknowledgements of residents who died or retired from town service during the previous year — not to mention the inability to see neighbors and socialize — the stripped-down 2020 ATM “did not have the same flavor and feel of our usual annual gathering,” some of its innovations will be carried forward, Holden said. Among them:
- Making presentations and background information available online in advance of the ATM, including a comprehensive budget presentation
- Making greater use of the consent calendar for noncontroversial issues, a step that “was very well received in June,” Holden noted. As always, residents can ask to have individual items held out for separate discussion and voting.
- Using runners with roving wireless microphones rather than having people lines up at stationary mics to ask questions or make comments.
Some residents at the forum wondered if the ATM could be held remotely. “My opinion is that this format we’re doing right now is not bad,” Water Commission Chair Jim Hutchinson said. Selectman Jennifer Glass pointed out that state law still requires ATMs to occur in person, though dividing it up over several days is permitted.
“My feeling is you lose something about community when you do it that way — it’s just not the same,” Holden said.
School project
Phase I of the two-year, two-phase school project is about halfway done, and the pandemic has not affected the cost or schedule for the work, School Building Committee Chair Chris Fasciano said.
Although several items had to be cut from the project earlier this year when bids came in over budget, some of them are on track to be restored through previously announced donations from the estate of Harriet Todd, Robert and Jacquelin Apsler, and a fund seeded by the eighth-grade Class of 2020. A grant from the Ogden Codman Trust will fund two bike/walking paths.
The Class of 2020 Tree Fund, which aims to restore new trees and plantings originally budgeted at $56,084, now stands at $35,500 (the fund’s goal is $60,000), Fasciano reported. The SBC has also applied for $161,200 in funds from the town’s Community Preservation Act funding in fiscal 2021 to cover the cost of upgrading the former green playground.
New auditorium rigging will not be included in the final project because the construction deadline for funding that work has passed. Also still needed is funding for furniture, fixtures, equipment, and technology that was cut. A total of $956,000 was originally budgeted; voters restored $200,000 as part of a $829,000 school package at the ATM in June.
A request for the remaining $756,000 “is likely to come up at some point,” though exactly when is unclear, Fasciano said. “It is a necessary part of the project.”
Town budget
Another unknown about the ongoing pandemic is how it will affect the budget for the next fiscal year. In the current budget that began on July 1, the Finance Committee trimmed employee retirement contributions, deferred some capital expenditures, and expanded the town’s reserve fund by 50% to $753,000.
The town has also been tracking its expenses relating to Covid-19 and has thus far been reimbursed for all of them — but the CARES Act expires at the end of December and the prospects for another federal stimulus package are uncertain, FinCom chair Andy Payne said. As expected, the biggest Covid-related spending categories for the town have been personal protective equipment, IT hardware and support, and cleaning supplies and services, Payne said.
The FinCom has told departments who are now formulating their fiscal 2021 budget requests that they can ask for the usual maximum increase of 2.5%. The group is willing to consider additional requests, especially if cuts in services would be required, “but it’s gotta be super-compelling,” Payne said.
On the bright side, the town affirmed its AAA bond rating when it recently bonded $2,2 million for the Water Department at an interest rate below 1%, and the stabilization fund is now at about $2.47 million, “so we feel that we remain in pretty good financial shape at this point,” he said.
Water Department Superintendent MaryBeth Wiser has resigned as of Jan. 1, 2021. The change will mean another recruiting push for the embattled department, which has seen budget and personnel turmoil resulting in substantial capital spending and water rate increases.
The agenda for the 
Town Hall is open for early voting in the upcoming election at the following times:
(Editor’s note: this story was updated on October 1.)
