The Lincoln Squirrel – News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

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My Turn: Vote yes on plastics-ban articles at Town Meeting

By Trisha O’Hagan

Lincoln has an exciting opportunity on May 15­ at our annual Town Meeting to drastically reduce our reliance on single-use plastics.

The Lincoln-Sudbury Environmental Club and Mothers Out Front–Lincoln have submitted articles proposing Styrofoam, polystyrene, and plastic straw bans. From start to finish, these plastics pollute our air, water, land, and bodies, and once created they never go away.

There is also an article calling for a 10-cent checkout bag charge to encourage the use of reusable bags over single-use paper bags. 

Lincoln has no ability to recycle Styrofoam. It goes into our trash and is incinerated in North Andover, Mass. These incinerators, while producing some electricity, also pollute their nearby communities with dioxins, mercury, and other contaminants. And disproportionally, these incinerators are located in environmental justice communities.

Lincoln would join 51 other Massachusetts cities and towns in banning polystyrene (including our neighbors in Sudbury, Wayland, Concord, and Lexington). Hopefully, as more towns pass these bans, it will apply pressure to our state legislature to pass statewide bans.

We need your help! Please attend Town Meeting and support these articles. 

Join with others working towards sustainable/zero waste policies for our town. This Town of Lincoln website has a full presentation of the articles, or contact Trisha O’Hagan at PMOKiwi@comcast.net for more information. Thank you.

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their 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 Submissions containing personal attacks, errors of fact, or other inappropriate material will not be published.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: A welcome language update

By Kim Bodnar, Jennifer Glass, Emily Haslett, Sarah Cannon Holden, Stuart Rose, Ellen Meyer Shorb, and Peter von Mertens

At the upcoming Annual Town Meeting on May 15, we have an opportunity to catch up with the times (and many of our neighboring towns!) by voting to change the name of the Board of Selectmen to the Select Board. Additionally, passing Article #24 will authorize clerical updates to ensure town bylaws and policies are gender-neutral.

When Lincoln held its first town meeting in 1754, only men could vote and five men were chosen to serve as the Board of Selectmen. Over 220 years later, in 1977, Beth Reis was the first woman elected to the board, and since then, an additional nine women have served. We believe the time has come to make sure the name of the board welcomes all residents, regardless of gender identity, to see themselves reflected in this visible role in town government

At least 93 towns have changed to the gender-neutral name “Select Board,” including our neighbors in Sudbury, Concord, Weston, Lexington, Bedford, and Wayland. In 2020, the Massachusetts Selectmen’s Association voted to become the Massachusetts Select Board Association.

Last year, we filed a citizens’ petition to change the name of the board, but it was removed from the warrant when, due to COVID-19, town meeting was limited to financial articles. As we bring the petition forward again this year, we are pleased that it is being jointly sponsored by the Board of Selectmen and our citizen’s group.  

Please join us in taking this step to make town government a welcoming place for all!

“My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their 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 budget Q&A session on Tuesday

The Finance Committee is hosting a budget Q&A session on Zoom on Tuesday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m., an hour after a presentation by the Water Department (see related story).

As with other town groups appearing at Town Meeting on May 15, the FinCom asks residents to offer questions and feedback beforehand to keep the May 15 meeting as short as possible. The Zoom Q&A session will not include the full budget hearing presentation, which took place on April 27 and can be viewed on the town’s video meeting website or on YouTube, which allows accelerated playback. However, the May 11 session will be recorded and posted.

A summary of the proposed town budget for fiscal 2022 (click image to enlarge).

The FinCom projects that both revenue and expenditures will increase by 5.4% overall (see chart).

Additional resources:

 

Panel opts to stay the course with current water treatment plant

The Water Commission voted to stay the course with the current water treatment plant after analyzing a consultant’s report that also examined the pros and cons of building a new plant or applying to join the MWRA system.

The commission will also hold a public forum on its Annual Town Meeting budget requests via Zoom on Tuesday, May 11 at 6:30 p.m. (see below).

A cost summary of there three options studied by Tata and Howard (click image to enlarge).

In the wake of skyrocketing spending in recent years for modernizing the water treatment plant, which is based on older technology, Tata and Howard presented costs and benefits of three paths forward in a draft report in February:

  1. Keeping the existing plant and paying for whatever future upgrades it may need
  2. Building a new and larger plant using current technology that’s better able to cope with current and emerging contaminants
  3. Decommissioning the plant and applying to get town water from the MWRA

According to the report, a new plant would cost between $17.4 and $20.6 million, while connecting to the MWRA through one of the adjacent member towns would cost $8 million. A new plant would also have to be sited on a separate piece of property since it would have to be built while the current plant is still operating. The land nearby on Sandy Pond Road is town-owned but is conservation land., so using any of that would require finding an equivalent amount of land elsewhere in town to put into conservation to compensate.

Former Conservation Director Thomas Gumbart said he had been approached about taking land out of conservation for municipal service and “strongly warned” that conservation land is not meant to be “a municipal land bank,” Water Commission member Michelle Barnes relayed at the panel’s February 25 meeting.

The likelihood that the MWRA would accept an application from Lincoln is very low, because the town already has an adequate supply of drinking water, and it would be unprecedented for a community to be accepted purely on financial grounds.

Opting for a new plant or joining the MWRA doesn’t make sense at this point because after next year, relatively little money will have to be spent on the current plant, compared to the large amounts of capital investment required for the other two options, Commission Chair Jim Hutchinson said at the group’s April 12 meeting when it voted unanimously to stay with the existing approach.

About $3.62 million must be spent on capital projects between now and 2042 to keep the current plant running, according to the report. A new plant would cost an estimated $478,000 per year to operate and maintain, compared to $348,000 a year for the existing plant and more than $1 million annually if Lincoln went with the MWRA. The MWRA’s annual assessments are slated to rise by 3.9% per year for the next 10 years, Hutchinson noted.

Although sticking with the status quo makes sense for now, the commission may find itself revisiting the MWRA option sometime in the next 20 years when the current treatment plants nears the end of its useful life, Barnes said. The group will redo its analysis every 10 years “as the time approaches to do a major overhaul on the water treatment plan to see if a different decision would make sense in the future,” member Ruth Ann Hendrickson said this week.

One of the concerns about staying with the current plant was whether it would be able to handle the increased levels of TTHM even after the upcoming installation of a new $680,000 coagulation system. Levels have been slowly rising over the years as an indirect result of more organic matter in Flint’s Pond, which may be due to warming temperatures.

The new coagulation system should take care of the problem, but if necessary, the plant could switch to treating the water with a different class of chemicals called chloramines. This would require advance public notification because chloramines must first be removed from water before it can be used in fish tanks and for dialysis.

Budget forum on Tuesday

The Water Department’s budget requests for the coming fiscal year include $1.88 million in operating costs (a 2.5% increase over this year’s total) as well as $907,600 in capital spending, which will necessitate borrowing $830,000 if approved.

The larger of the two capital items is $480,000 to replace the Tower Road well, pump, and piping. During the dry months, the maximum yield of the well (which came online in the 1960s) is limited because of the age, style, and condition of the existing well screen where raw water iron and manganese collect, and cleaning capabilities are limited.

The Water Department’s proposed operating and capital budgets for the fiscal year beginning in July (click image to enlarge).

This year, the Water Commission formally reviewed its budget plans with the Finance Committee and the Capital Planning Committee as the town requested, although it wasn’t required to do so because it is a separate entity funded entirely by user fees. The request came after huge budget increase and borrowing in 2019 and 2020 and staffing for both the department and its overseeing commission were in flux. Former Finance Commission chair Jim Hutchinson was elected to the commission last year and is now the chair.

There will be no increase in water usage rates or base fees next year. Going forward, the commission is “striving to get back to a more ‘steady state’ level of requests for FY23,” Hutchinson said last month, though some capital spending is to be expected every year. In April 2020, water usage rates were hiked by 28% and base charges went up 43% in addition to the borrowing, while the operating budget request rose by 38%.

Click here for the Zoom link for the May 11 forum, or go to the Annual Meeting web page for links to this and other presentations ahead of the May 15 Town Meeting.

Property tax proposal is topic of Monday night presentation

A proposal to redistribute property taxes to help homeowners with limited means and property values is the subject of a Zoom presentation on Monday, May 3 at 7 p.m.

At the upcoming Annual Town Meeting on May 15, voters will be asked to approve a home-rule petition to the state legislature that would allow Lincoln to create a local Property Tax Extended Circuit Breaker Program. If approved, the program would limit the percentage of income a homeowner would have to pay in property taxes based on their income, assets, length of time in town, and age (65+). Funding would come from a small across-the-board tax rate increase. 

The Property Tax Study Committee was formed in 2019 to look at ways to ease the burden on limited-income residents and preserve economic diversity after the town raised property taxes by almost 15% to pay for the $93 million school project. The issue was discussed at the State of the Town Meeting in November 2019 and was slated for a vote at Annual Town Meeting, but that meeting was postponed and stripped of nonessential warrant articles as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.

Last year’s postponed proposal would have applied to renters as well as homeowners, “but we don’t have an easy mechanism for implementing this kind of a program for renters — we don’t have that [financial] connection with them as we do with homeowners,” Selectman Jennifer Glass said when she recapped the plan at an April 26 board meeting. To track more closely to other towns’ programs, Lincoln’s plan applies to homeowners over 65 who meet the state’s income limits and those who have lived in town for five years, rather than the 10 years specified by some other towns. Otherwise, the proposed program is identical to the one that has been offered in Sudbury since 2014.

“We want our home rule petition to be as familiar to the legislature as possible” to maximize its chances of passage, Glass said. Sudbury, Concord, and Wayland have already enacted local versions of the state circuit breaker program.

To qualify for the plan, a house must not exceed Lincoln’s average single-family property value plus 10%. The plan would be funded by shifting up to 0.5% of the total tax levy in the first year, and 1.0% in years two and three. The program would have to be reauthorized at Town Meeting every three years.

Phase 2 of the effort to limit the tax burden on some seniors will involve establishing a task force to look at the town’s social services and come up with a long-range plan for  social svcs and det LR plan for supporting the community’s needs.

In 2019, the committee initially floated a residential tax exemption as well as the circuit-breaker proposal, but it was shelved after residents at a public forum were cool to the idea. That proposal would have exempted a certain percentage of the value of everyone’s property, meaning that the tax burden would shift toward those with higher-value homes to benefit those with homes at the lower end of the value range.

Capital spending requests on tap for Wednesday presentation

Capital spending requests that residents will vote at at Town Meeting on May 15 include funds for school furniture and equipment, a public safety radio system, and a new town well.

The Capital Planning Committee (CapCom) and the Community Preservation Committee (CPC) will host a joint Zoom presentation on their proposals on Wednesday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m. Click here for the agenda, which includes the Zoom link as well as brief descriptions of each item.

CapCom is proposing a total of $2,762,310 in two separate warrant articles that will be up for a vote on May 15. Article 7 seeks $937,695 for nine items. The single largest request is $410,557 for furniture and technology needs for the renovated Lincoln School that were cut earlier to stay within the construction budget. The only other six-figure item is $380,000 to refurbish the Fire Department’s ladder truck.

In a separate vote, CapCom will ask for $1,824,615 to replace the fire and police department’s public radio system. That item was originally considered for approval at the the 2020 Town Meeting but was deferred in favor of restoring some of the cuts to the school project.

The CPC is seeking approval to spend a total of $1,385,646 on 16 items costing $1,281,834 plus $103,812 from the housing reserve fund. Those items include $355,000 to repair the library’s parapet and $307,891 for debt service for the Town Office Building renovations as well as $161,200 for Lincoln School playground equipment and $200,000 for land acquisition.

Water Department funding

The Water Department is seeking capital spending totaling $907,600. That includes about $350,000 to complete a project to reduce total trihalomethanes (TTHM) in the drinking water, since they have been slightly over the state-mandated limit for some time. TTHMs are formed as the result of required chlorine disinfection on pond water with increasing levels of plant matter and algae.

Voters approved spending $330,000 in 2019 for the first phase of the project to install coagulation treatment to filter out more of the organic matter in the pre-treatment phase. The new expenditure will pay for equipment to handle the residuals from the treatment process so the chemicals can be safely released from the water plant without violating its discharge permit.

Water Commission chair Jim Hutchinson said the money needed for this second phase was not brought up last year as a future expense because the final cost was very uncertain at that time. Also, the commission’s Town Meeting presentation was limited to only items to be funded that year at the request of Town Moderator Sarah Cannon Holden in the interest of keeping the meeting short.

Also on the Water Commission’s wish list is $480,000 to replace the aging Tower Road well, which has been on their for several years. The group is hoping to pay for the well and the TTHM system by bonding $830,000. The other items on their capital improvements list will be paid for from Water Department retained earnings.

This is the third bonding request in two years for the Water Department. Voters approved almost $2 million (including the $330,000 for the first part of the TTHM project) in two separate measures in 2019, followed by $225,000 in borrowing voted at the 2020 Town Meeting.

“Much like the town as a whole, the Water Department has regular capital needs that are not properly handled in an operating budget, and need to be requested separately and funded with bonding or reserve funds. And that will continue to be the case going forward,” Hutchinson said. “It is true that the requests made in FY20-21 and that we are making for FY22 are larger than normal, due in part to the department previously falling behind on replacing aging infrastructure and in part due to the TTHM issue. Looking forward, we are striving to get back to a more ‘steady state’ level of requests for FY23, but there is always some amount of uncertainty and potential for surprises about capital needs.”

Water Department capital funding requests
CategoryDescriptionAmountFunding Source
Regulatory compliance with high TTHM levelsResiduals handling & neutralization system upgrades at water treatment plant (WTP) to comply with the EPA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System discharge permit$350,000* Bonding
Aging infrastructureReplace Tower Road Well (current well cannot pump at desired rates despite aggressive cleanings due to clogged shutter-type screen)$480,000Bonding
Aging infrastructureReplace compressor #2 at WTP (two compressors in service since 1995; replace the one with more hours on it)$25,000Retained earnings
Increase resiliencyInvestigate cost and engineering needed to interconnect with Wayland. A backup water source is needed for our emergency response plan.$13,600Retained earnings
Increase resiliencyEvaluate current condition of storage tank and reconsider previously proposed solutions to what is currently our sole storage tank. $39,000Retained earnings
Required by Mass. Water Management Act permitConduct water audit to determine what happens to the water we produce. $31,500**Retained earnings
Total water capital projects:$939,100

* Subject to adjustment up until ATM motion is finalized, as T&H work to better define scope of this project.

* The Water Commission voted to remove this item from the warrant pending feedback from the state DEP on the town’s previous numbers.

Planning Board presentation to focus on bylaw proposals

Lincoln officials are gearing up for Annual Town Meeting with advance presentations via Zoom starting Tuesday night.

The Planning Board will explain and take questions about two measures — an accessory apartment zoning bylaw revision and a new illicit discharge/stormwater management general bylaw — on Tuesday, April 27 starting at 7 p.m. Click here for the Zoom link (meeting ID: 994 5136 7238; passcode: 317537).

The changes to the accessory apartment bylaw would add a cap on the number of accessory apartments allowed equal to 5% of all residential units in Lincoln. The board also proposes to remove limitations on the age of structures that are eligible to add accessory apartments, and to require a minimum rental term of 30 days where the accessory apartment or principal dwelling is occupied as a rental unit. 

Lincoln voters approved the Affordable Accessory Apartment program four years ago, but it was only recently that the state officially OK’d it, so the local rules needed some tweaks before the program can finally launch.

Stormwater proposal

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified land disturbance and polluted storm water runoff as a major source of water pollution. Under Lincoln’s federal and state environmental permits, it’s required to work on a range of measures including adoption of a Stormwater Management Bylaw.

This bylaw would prohibit pollutants and other non-stormwater discharge such as an indoor drains, sinks, toilets, or washing machines from being discharged into the storm drain system or a water course. The Planning Board would administer the town’s Stormwater Management program and adopt regulations including rules to ensure erosion control during construction.

More information:

Future presentations will be announced to give residents as much advance information as possible with the goal of keeping the outdoor May 15 ATM as short as possible.

Town election results: Doo wins seat on Parks and Rec Committee

In the only contested race in the local election on Mach 29, 2021, Brianna Doo beat Evan Gorman for an open seat on the Parks and Recreation Committee by a total of 303–87. However, Gorman also successfully ran for reelection to the Housing Commission.

Offices & CandidatesPrecinct 1Precinct 2Total
BOARD OF SELECTMEN
JENNIFER LANE REASER GLASS268162430
WRITE-IN112
BLANK18725
BOARD OF ASSESSORS
EDWARD H. MORGAN263153416
WRITE-IN101
BLANK231740
BOARD OF HEALTH
PATRICIA E. MILLER259158417
WRITE-IN101
BLANK271239
CEMETERY COMMISSIONER
DOUGLAS B. HARDING259156415
WRITE-IN112
BLANK271340
COMMISSIONER OF TRUST FUNDS
WRITE-IN19928
DONALD COLLINS5611
BLANK263155418
HOUSING COMMISSION
EVAN KARMEL GORMAN251149400
WRITE-IN303
BLANK332154
L-S REGIONAL SCHOOL DISTRICT COMMITTEE
HEATHER-JEANNE COWAP SALEMME259155414
MARY D. WARZYNSKI192114306
WRITE-IN101
BLANK12271193
PARKS & RECREATION COMMITTEE
BRIANNA MARISA DOO183120303
EVAN KARMEL GORMAN513687
WRITE-IN101
BLANK521466
PLANNING BOARD
GERALD A. TAYLOR253153406
WRITE-IN123
BLANK331548
SCHOOL COMMITTEE
SUSAN HANDS TAYLOR245150395
JOHN A. MACLACHLAN227135362
WRITE-IN101
BLANK10155156
TRUSTEES OF BEMIS
MIRIAM L. BORDEN255155410
WRITE-IN101
BLANK311546
WATER COMISSIONER
JAMES M. HUTCHINSON262157419
WRITE-IN000
BLANK251338

My Turn: Brianna Doo seeks votes for Parks & Rec

(Editor’s note: Evan Gorman also filed papers in February to run for the single open seat on the Parks and Recreation Commission in the town election on Monday, March 29.)

By Brianna Doo

I am writing to introduce myself and to ask for your vote in the upcoming town election. My name is Brianna Doo, and I am running for a spot on the Parks & Recreation Committee.

Since we moved to Lincoln seven years ago, my family has been very involved with the Parks & Recreation department. My six children participate in many of the programs offered for preschool and school-aged children. I have previously served and will continue to serve as the role of parent coordinator for the summer swim team and have helped the coaches organize meets. I have also enjoyed volunteering at various other Parks & Recreation events.

In addition, I currently serve as the room/cohort coordinator within the Lincoln Public School PTO, and designed and organized the “spirit wear” sales this year. I have actively volunteered in many other town/school and community organizations over the past few years, including as a Lincoln Youth Soccer board member. I believe there are opportunities for collaboration between LYS and the parks and recreation department, and look forward to furthering that collaboration as a member of the committee.

I hope to continue to serve the community as an active member of the Parks & Recreation Committee. Since my children will be involved with the Parks & Recreation activities for years to come, I am uniquely interested in the programming, and would love to play a role in finding new opportunities for activities. I believe that, with my perspective, knowledge, and experience, I will be a valuable asset to the committee, and I hope that you will vote for me on Monday, March 29.

My Turn: Glass asks for votes as she runs for reelection

By Jennifer Glass

I write to announce my candidacy for re-election to the Board of Selectmen for a three-year term, and I ask for the support of Lincoln’s residents and voters.

When I first ran in 2017, I made a commitment to pursue holistic planning and decision-making given the breadth of topics that fall under the purview of the board. That commitment continues energize me in assisting us to achieve our collective goals and is what motivates me to seek election to serve the town for another term.

Town residents and our town government working together have begun and accomplished many important objectives during the past four years:

  • We approved the Lincoln School revitalization project, and construction is well underway
  • The development of Oriole Landing allowed the town to continue its commitment to more affordable housing options
  • We launched the Lincoln Green Energy Choice program, which meaningfully reduces our collective carbon footprint
  • We entered into an agreement with the deCordova Museum and the Trustees of Reservations to ensure a vital future for the arts in Lincoln
  • We started community discussions about racism and racial equity following the brutal murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor
  • The global pandemic forced us to entirely rethink how we run our town government and care for our residents.

Much of this work is ongoing. Last fall the board hosted a series of roundtables that brought together community members, our police chief, town boards, and community groups and institutions to talk about inclusion, diversity, equity, and anti-racism. This laid the groundwork for the IDEA Initiative, a new committee that we will appoint in April and that is expected to examine how the town can specifically and intentionally address equity and justice.

The work of the South Lincoln Planning & Advisory Committee (SLPAC) forms another major focus of the town. The Planning Board has been studying potential zoning changes in the area around the train station for a number of years, and SLPAC is continuing that examination with an eye toward making recommendations to the town in 2022. The town is now considering the potential changes in the context of the Massachusetts Housing Choice Act that the legislature passed in January that has specific provisions for towns with an MBTA station.

The legislature also recently passed a landmark act to combat climate change, which will have profound implications for us as individuals and a community for many decades to come. We will engage with town residents to assist us all in meeting our commitments under the act.

Now that the school project is nearly halfway completed, it is time for the town to restart the conversation about a community center that would house both the Parks & Recreation Department and the Council on Aging (or “the Council on Aging and Human Services” if we approve the name change at Town Meeting!). In doing so, we will continue discussions about the town’s provision of social services and about town finances and property taxes.

All of these issues are interrelated, and we must consider them together if we are to shape the future of the town in innovative and positive ways. Most fortunately, we have a skilled and knowledgeable professional team and dedicated volunteers on our town boards and committees to engage in this effort. With your vote of support, I look forward to continuing to contribute to the work of this team. Again, I ask for your vote at the town election on Monday, March 29.

Respectfully,

Jennifer Glass
11 Stonehedge Road

”My Turn” is a forum for readers to offer their 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.