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Letter to the editor: Thanks for L-S funding

letter

To the editor:

The Lincoln Sudbury School Committee and administration thank the citizens of Lincoln and Sudbury for approving the capital requests, for this year’s technology infrastructure improvements at the high school, at the respective town meetings. We also thank officials from both towns for providing feedback and encouragement through the capital request.

The high school is preparing for the installation of an improved network backbone and the upgrading of some critical servers by the time the school reopens this fall. In future years, we want to address educational technology in the classroom, continue to upgrade critical servers, and return to funding annual scheduled upgrades of the educational technology infrastructure.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Radha Gargeya, Sudbury (chair), on behalf of the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional District School Committee

Letters to the editor must be signed with the writer’s name and street address and sent via email to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com. Letters must be about a Lincoln-specific topic. Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published. Letters may be edited for punctuation, spelling, style, etc., and will be published at the discretion of the editor.

Kennedy eyed as next Lincoln police chief

police logoLt. Kevin Kennedy, a longtime member of the Lincoln Police Department, is in line to become the town’s next chief of police and will be formally interviewed by the Board of Selectmen at its May 12 meeting.

Kennedy, who has been with the Lincoln police for 22 years, would succeed retiring Chief of Police Kevin Mooney if the board votes to hire him. There are no other candidates being considered, according to Town Administrator Tim Higgins.

“The board and I feel he’s uniquely qualified for the position,” Higgins said of Kennedy. “He’s committed himself to Lincoln for his entire career, and the police chief has done a fantastic job of cultivating him [for the chief’s role] over the years.”

The selectmen have received letters in support of Kennedy’s candidacy from many organizations in town, including the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Council on Aging and the schools, according to Higgins. “He’s very well known and well regarded for his work in Lincoln,” he said.

Kennedy has served in several roles in Lincoln including that of juvenile officer. He has also completed leadership training with the FBI and the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, Higgins said.

Program offers low-cost rain barrels

barrel-colorHaven’t installed a rain barrel yet? Did you install one last year and need a second one to collect more water? The Lincoln Water Department has again teamed up with Upcycle Products Inc. to offer low-cost barrels. Order them online by May 10 from the Upcycle.com website (click on the Lincoln form in the right hand column). The barrels will be delivered for pick up at Stonegate Gardens on South Great Road on Saturday, May 17 from 4-6 p.m.

Using rain barrels to water your gardens reduces the water drawn from our drinking water supply, helping Lincoln to achieve the DEP’s water conservation goals while simultaneously saving you money. The soft, chemical-free rain water is very good for grass and other plants. During a rain storm, an enormous quantity of water runs off a roof, so you may want to order more than one. Each 4’ x 8’ section of roof that receives a quarter-inch of rain will fill a 55-gallon barrel.

“Peter Pease has been our best customer so far,” says Lincoln Water Commissioner Ruth Ann Hendrickson. “I went to see his installation. He uses four to supply soaker hoses and two to fill buckets for hand watering. Peter reports that he had to use sprinklers far less last summer in spite of the weeks without rain.”

All the Upcycle Products plastic rain barrels were originally used for transporting food products to the U.S. from overseas, while the oak barrels were used for whiskey, so this program not only promotes water conservation but also diverts large quantities of material from the waste stream. Reuse is the best form of recycling.

Community center committee volunteers sought

communityThe Board of Selectmen is seeking volunteers to serve on a soon-to-be-appointed committee whose charge will be to study options for meeting the facilities needs of the Council on Aging, the Parks & Recreation Department and various community organizations, said options to include the construction of a new community center.

The committee will interview consultants, recommend a preferred firm or individual to the Board of Selectmen, and oversee the work of the consultant. The committee will organize a process for public involvement and will report its final recommendations to the board in time for a presentation to Town Meeting in March 2015.

Those interested in volunteering may do so by sending a letter of interest by email to parkhurstd@lincolntown.org or by mail to the Board of Selectmen, Attn: Administrative Assistant Debra Parkhurst, 16 Lincoln Road, Lincoln MA 01773.

Corrections

  • correction-smToday’s article on the continuation of the Jet Aviation hearing gave an incorrect date for the next session. It will be on April 9 at 7:45 p.m. in the Town Office Building’s Donaldson Room. The article has been updated to reflect this correction.
  • The April 3 article on the effort by a group of eighth-graders to win voter approval for the purchase of bike racks neglected to mention the key role of Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden, who worked with Town Clerk Susan Brooks with the students to get their citizens’ petition onto the Town Meeting warrant. “Sarah has been an essential and invaluable partner from start to finish,” Brooks said.

Jet Aviation hearing continued again

Jet_PlaneThe public hearing on Jet Aviation’s expansion proposal at Hanscom Field is still going on—the next session will be Wednesday, April 9 at 7:45 p.m. in the Lincoln Town Offices’ Donaldson Room.

The Conservation Commission has already held three sessions on the proposed plan to replace a hangar and build another, along with an access road and more parking. The plan requires a special permit from the ConsComm because it would impinge on a wetlands buffer zone.

Residents opposed to the expansion and Jet Aviation have both hired lawyers to bolster their arguments, “and that’s complicated the proceedings a little bit,” said Chris Reilly, Lincoln’s Director of Planning and Land Use. “The Conservation Commission is absorbing this information from various parties” and probably will not be ready to vote at this week’s hearing, he said.

If the commission gives its assent, Jet Aviation does not require any other permits from the town. The property is exempt from further local regulation because it is owned and operated by Massport, a state agency, and the expansion would not change the overall mission at the site.

Residents approve up to $250,000 for another school study

moneybagBy Alice Waugh

At Town Meeting on March 29, residents approved spending up to $250,000 to come up with options and cost estimates for school renovation projects, but not without considerable discussion and a number of dissenting votes—though not enough to derail the measure, which required a two-thirds majority vote.

[Read more…] about Residents approve up to $250,000 for another school study

Kids rack up a Town Meeting victory

The eighth-graders who fashioned a warrant article to request new bikes racks were (left to right) Janie Petraglia Luke Belge, Zoe Belge, Anna Shorb, Cal Hamandi and (not pictured) Jacob Strock.

The eighth-graders who fashioned a warrant article to request new bikes racks were (left to right) Janie Petraglia, Luke Belge, Zoe Belge, Anna Shorb, Cal Hamandi and (not pictured) Jacob Strock.

By Alice Waugh

Today’s children will govern the Lincoln of tomorrow—and they had a chance to practice at Town Meeting on March 29.

Six Lincoln School eighth-graders—Luke and Zoe Belge, Cal Hamandi, Janie Petraglia, Anna Shorb and Jacob Strock—worked since last fall with Town Clerk Susan Brooks on writing a warrant article for Town Meeting. But rather than dealing with zoning by-laws or property tax rates, their effort eventually focused on something more important to kids: new bike racks.

They started with a presentation by Brooks on how town government works and then brainstormed some ideas for a warrant article they could bring up for a Town Meeting vote with a citizens’ petition. “They thought broadly at the beginning,” Brooks said with a laugh. “Some of the ideas were pretty far out.”

One of the old bike racks outside Hartwell Pod C.

One of the old bike racks outside Hartwell Pod C.

Eventually the kids hit upon the idea of a citizen’s petition seeking money for new bike racks. They did an informal poll of classmates and found that quote a few of them would ride their bikes to school if there was a better rack for locking their bikes. The decades-old models now at the schools were designed to lock only the front wheel, which doesn’t cut it with today’s fancier bikes with quick-release wheels.

The process, as is usually the case with getting things done in government, required talking to lots of people and doing research. They talked to Lincoln School facilities director Michael Haynes about where on the school campus the new racks might be installed. They went online and found a $125 bike rack online that will lock five bikes (how many they’ll eventually get will depend on the maximum dollar amount that will be requested, which hasn’t been finalized yet). And they gathered signatures. A citizen’s petition for a warrant article requires 10 valid signatures, but the bike-rack group collected 60 to 70.

And then there were the meetings. The students presented their idea to  the School Committee, the Board of Selectmen (“they were really enthusiastic about it,” said Luke Belge) and finally the Finance Committee. The last session was “a more serious formal meeting, said Luke’s sister Zoe, who chaired the student group. “They had a lot of questions.” Finally, they had to make their case to voters before Town Meeting, so they divvied up the tasks of writing articles for the school newsletter, the Lincoln Review and the Lincoln Journal, and creating and rehearsing a PowerPoint presentation for the big day.

After patiently waiting for their warrant article to come up, the students took turns detailing the need for new racks. Shorb explained how the old bike racks are too small, especially on Wednesdays, when some of the older students bike from school to the Whistle Stop after school. Shorb and Petraglia explained how they aren’t really secure. And Hamandi assured any voters wary of hidden costs that there would be no sales tax for the tax-exempt school and no spending required for installation, since school custodial staff would do that as part of their regular duties.

Residents passed the measure unanimously and also gave the students a round of applause along with appreciative town officials.

“This really takes it to a new level to go through this process,” said Selectman Peter Braun.