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

land use

My Turn: 48 residents endorse Domnitz and DeLisi for Planning Board

Dear friends and neighbors,

Monday’s vote for Planning Board is significant, and we the undersigned, 48 of your Lincoln neighbors, offer the following perspective.

Over the past year, we became aware of a sweeping and profound zoning change taking shape in the Planning Board’s advisory committee (SLPIC). The proposal was designed to smooth the way for developers to move large-scale development projects directly through the Planning Board. We are but a few of the over 200 families who live within what would have been the new “South Lincoln Village Zone,” joined here by impacted neighbors and other allied residents. Our neighborhood is currently a mix of single-family and multi-family homes, condos, and apartments that are both owned and rented, and it’s about five times as dense as the rest of town.

We challenged the proposed zoning bylaw because it permitted four-story buildings with 20 units per acre, built right to their lot lines. The new zone would have covered roughly 30 acres and paved the way for hundreds of new condos and/or apartments to our small, congested neighborhood without requiring project approval by Town Meeting. For example, they modeled a net potential gain of 271 units over only four of the 27 properties within the new zone.

Through organizing, collaborating, raising our voices, and attending many Planning Board and SLPIC meetings, we gained some insight into the three candidates for Planning Board. We invite you to join us in voting for Bob Domnitz and Lynn DeLisi. Lynn is the only current member of the Planning Board who voiced her opposition to this ill-conceived and harmful proposal. Being the lone voice over many months was no doubt tiring and isolating, but Lynn has persisted in elevating our concerns over the impact on our diverse neighborhood.

Bob Domnitz seeks to keep ultimate approval authority for these kinds of major development projects — i.e. a housing development twice as dense as Oriole Landing — with the town, not the Planning Board. He has seen many consequential development projects succeed by working with town boards and then earning town support. He has served on the Planning Board before, and we hope you will join us in bringing his experience and his fresh perspective to the important decisions facing the Planning Board in the coming years.

The Planning Board is reframing SLPIC and revising the zoning proposal. We hope that they will continue to respect the concerns of those members of our community most impacted by major zoning changes in South Lincoln. We all hope for thriving local businesses, community space, optimized commuter rail use, and decreased carbon emissions. Let’s task our Planning Board with also preserving the affordable housing options we currently have and maintaining the appropriately scaled development we treasure.

Signed, your South Lincoln Neighbors who live within the “South Lincoln Village Zone”:

John Dorr
Bayhas Kana and Sara Postlethwait
Yaman Kana
Kim Leigh-Manuell
Mark Levinson
Jason and Jessica Packineau
Veena Ramani and Adam Stark
Mary Rosenfeld
Sarah Schuller
Michael Welch

Signed, families living in close proximity to the proposed “South Lincoln Village Zone”:

Mark Ahern
Diana Bercel
Liz Burton
Vanessa Cartwright
James and Bonnie Echmalian
Denise and Eric Gieseke
Iris Hoxha
Katrin Kriz
Ada Lee and John Po
Isabel Lee
June Matthews
Thomas Moran
Catherine Moritz
Constance and Richard Ohlsten
Lisa Parker
William Schiano
Melissa Shea
Lisa Slater

Signed, Lincoln residents who join with our South Lincoln neighbors on this issue:

Jamie Banks
Pauline Curtiss
Christopher Dale
Erica Gonella and Shakil Aslam
Jane Herlacher
Maria O’Brien Hylton
Liz Lieblich
Julie Lynch
Caroline and Mark Nordstrom
Barbara Peskin
Jeannine Taylor

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents 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.

Planning Board candidates square off at well-attended forum

More than 60 residents packed a room (on Zoom) on Thursday night to hear from the three candidates running for two Planning Board seats in the June 15 election. In the forum organized by resident Sharon Antia, the trio answered questions about issues facing the Planning Board and the town more generally: South Lincoln rezoning, how to support businesses during the pandemic, affordable housing, and more.

Challenger Bob Domnitz, a former Planning Board member who was ousted by Gary Taylor in 2015, said he was running to regain his seat when “I realized the Planning Board was serious about bringing a zoning amendment before Town Meeting to make the Planning Board the decision-maker on major projects” by majority vote, he said. “That didn’t fit in with the nature of Lincoln as I knew it, and it’s antithetical to how we operate as a community.”

Under a proposal unveiled last year by a subcommittee of the former South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC), mixed-use projects would be allowed in areas around the mall and the MBTA station with s site plan review and a special permit from the Planning Board. With that permit, housing projects could be up to 20 units per acre, and a greater maximum lot coverage (60% for residential and 100% for business) would be allowed. However, Town Meeting approval would not be required unless a proposed project exceeded the special-permit density.

Incumbent Rick Rundell pushed back, saying it was “an absurd position” to imply that the Planning Board could take away power from Town Meeting without residents’ consent. (The SLPIC proposal was initially slated for a Special Town Meeting vote in the fall, but the Planning Board withdrew its proposal after encountering opposition.)

“How did they misread the character of this town so much that they worked on a proposal to take away Town Meeting authority for major projects?” Domnitz asked later in the forum.

“I had no idea what was going on [with the SLPIC subcommittee proposal] or I would have fought it,” incumbent Lynn DeLisi responded.

Rundell, who said he was recruited to the board in 2013 by Domnitz, argued that its duties should not focus on “fossilizing the town in a certain state” and that it has become more transparent since he was the chairman in 2014-15. The board has also “sunsetted” the requirement for site plan reviews after five years. “Today’s Planning Board has made light-years of progress since 2015,” he said.

Some of the questions focuses on what the Planning Board could do to help the town in this time of Covid-19. Incumbent candidate Lynn DeLisi suggested a public health center somewhere in town to promote vaccination once a vaccine becomes available.

The pandemic is a major challenge for both developers and prospective occupants of affordable housing. However, changing zoning regulations now to encourage more affordable housing and demographic diversity is not a good idea, the candidates agreed.

“I think we need to take a breath, wait a few months, and see how things settle out,” Domnitz said. “We may be heading towards a totally new world or at least a new equilibrium, and we need to go cautiously at this point.”

“I’m not sure the Planning Board can necessarily take the lead and make decisions about any of this. These are dialogues we need to have with people in the town,” DeLisi said.

The bigger question, Rundell said, “is whether we want to put a wall around our community and preserve the status quo… or be a part of a larger society, and I don’t think the town is at all aligned on that choice.”

Social diversity in Lincoln is certainly desirable, “but we can’t legislate that. All we can do is set up economic possibilities to create the kind of diversity we’re talking about,” Domnitz said. However, “getting some geographic diversity on our major boards would be constructive,” he added. Few if any current town board and committee members are residents of North Lincoln — although Domnitz is — “and the view from here is a little different than the view from elsewhere in town.”

As to where and how more affordable housing should be built, “does it have to be developing more dense housing in South Lincoln? I think it can be in other ways,” DeLisi said.

The candidates agreed that the SLPIC subcommittee’s efforts to reimagine South Lincoln were flawed but not about how to fix the process. The “sprawling” nature of SLPIC and its subcommittees meant that the effort was “not as transparent or receptive to input as it could have been,” Rundell acknowledged.

The board voted on June 9 to reconstitute SLPIC as a five-member South Lincoln Planning and Advisory Committee (SLPAC) but disagreed on the size of the new panel and who should be represented on it. Four of the five board members approved a group comprising only elected officials, “but I advocated very strongly for a member to be a resident from the affected area, and I was shot down by the other board members and I don’t understand why,” DeLisi said.

The parent board rather than a subcommittee should be responsible for coming up with future rezoning proposals, even though it will create more work and long meetings, Domnitz said. “This is very important and should take place within the Planning Board itself… the board needs to realize they own what that subcommittee is doing.”

Asked about the 2009 Comprehensive Long-Range Plan that was never acted on, Domnitz said, “The plan is vague, let’s put it that way…  It’s much easier for people to deal with a tangible proposal than an abstract concept.”

“I mark it as a failure of leadership that there was not real follow-up to that plan,” Rundell said. “Absent planning, Lincoln is going to be like a ship in a storm without rudders or sails and will soon find itself on the rocks.”

From the candidates’ opening and closing statements:

“My motto is ‘Responsible planning by collaboration with neighborhoods’ — that says it all.”
— Lynn DeLisi

“The Planning Board is on the wrong track. We need to put it on a better track so something actually happens in South Lincoln.”
— Bob Domnitz

“Respect for the past and planning for the future with integrity, fairness, and transparency…
Look at today’s board and how they operate, and give your vote to a forward-looking candidate.”
— Rick Rundell

South Lincoln panel is now a five-member “SLPAC”

The Planning Board voted on June 9 to reorganize and rename the South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee (SLPIC), but not until after a lengthy debate about the makeup and responsibilities of panel’s new incarnation.

The board began discussing downsizing SLPIC last week in the wake of opposition to one of its initiatives. With the help of consultants, SLPIC’s Village Planning and Zoning subcommittee drew up proposed regulations that would rezone part of South Lincoln to allow more commercial and housing development and also allow the fate of some projects to be decided by the Planning Board rather than Town Meeting.

Originally the plan was going to be voted on at the Annual Town Meeting in March, but before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it was delayed until the fall . The plan has now been permanently shelved after numerous residents objected at a forum in February.

Last week, the board acknowledged that the 12-member SLPIC was unwieldy, sometimes failing to achieve a quorum even though it met infrequently. Meanwhile, it was difficult for residents to follow the work of the five-person Village Planning and Zoning subcommittee, whose plan was unveiled at a public forum in May 2019.

“It felt very much to residents that this work was pretty finalized, set in stone, and ready for a vote at March Town Meeting,” said Jessica Packineau, a Lincoln Road resident and an organizer of a coalition protesting the rezoning and approval process proposals.

The board agreed that the next iteration of SLPIC would be more transparent and do a better job of publicizing its meetings and ramping up outreach as the latest School Building Committee did after the failed 2012 Town Meeting vote. 

At this week’s meeting, Planning Board member Lynn DeLisi initially said SLPIC should be disbanded entirely. “I just don’t see the purpose any more — it causes a lot of controversy,” she said. The full Planning Board, not SLPIC or one of its subcommittees, should be in charge of drafting rezoning proposals, she added.

But other board members objected to that idea, saying that it was too much work for the board (which meets every other week) to manage along with its regular duties of deciding on development applications. “We couldn’t have other things on our agenda, and we will all have to be meeting at least once a week and sometimes twice a week to get the work done,” chair Margaret Olson said.

“Devoting 98% of our time devoted to one part of the town doesn’t feel like it’s serving our mandate to address planning across Lincoln generally,” board member Rick Rundell said.

Eventually, members unanimously decided to keep the subcommittee but to rename it the South Lincoln Planning Advisory Committee (SLPAC). Other subcommittees of the former SLPIC can remain as well, depending on the willingness of their members to continue serving. Those teams will probably evolve in name and purview as well.

DeLisi argued that the new SLPAC should have seven or eight members rather than five, and that at least one member should be a resident of the area under rezoning discussion. But this also met with opposition. 

“It’s very dicey trying to pick one person to represent South Lincoln [residents],” said board member Steve Gladstone. For reasons of accountability with voters, all the members should be people who are already elected officials, he added.

“Once you start going down the stakeholder path, you’re on a very slippery slope,” Olson agreed. South Lincoln residents include house and condo owners as well as renters, so “who do you leave out?”

The board last week was moving toward creating a five-person successor to SLPIC consisting of two members from the Planning Board, one from the Housing Commission, one Selectman, and perhaps a fifth member to be decided. 

This week, DeLisi advocated a seven-member SPLAC with representatives from the Board of Health and the Conservation Commission as well as a resident, but the board voted down that idea 4-1. It subsequently voted by the same margin (with DeLisi voting “nay”) to go forward with the five-member plan, with the fifth coming from the Finance Committee.

Before the vote, former Planning Board member Bob Domnitz advocated postponing any decisions until after the June 15 election in which he, DeLisi, and Rundell and vying for two seats. “It would be nice if there was confidence that this [SLPAC reorganization] would still be a workable arrangement next week. I don’t think people necessarily have that confidence at this point,” he said. “Are you really sure you want to do this tonight?”

After the election, the board will write the charge for SLPAC and discuss which specific residents it will comprise.

My Turn: Reelect Lynn DeLisi and Rick Rundell to Planning Board

By Ken Bassett and Mary Helen Lorenz

This delayed Town Meeting [period] includes what I consider two important elections for seats on the Planning Board: a seat held by Lynn DeLisi and one by Rick Rundell. Both Lynn and Rick are running for reelection. Mary Helen and I support their reelection based in no small part on their role in making the business of the board run more smoothly with greater reliance on professional staff, heightened respect for resident’s needs, and efforts to look to future needs of the town.

By contrast, we do not support Bob Dominitz’s run for a Planning Board seat which he lost in 2015 after 12 years on the board. During his tenure, I was before the board on two projects that Bob opposed as having the potential for significant negative impacts — the revitalization of the Mall with its accommodation of the new post office, and the replacement of the Stearns Room at First Parish Church Lincoln. Both projects were ultimately approved, but not without Bob’s numerous claims of potential impacts that in the end were not substantiated. It is Bob’s negative view of planning and problem-solving that, if he is elected, will not serve this town well as we face important challenges in a changing world.

We strongly urge your support for the reelection of Lynn DeLisi and Rick Rundell.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Bassett and Mary Helen Lorenz
37 Page Rd., Lincoln

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents 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: Reelect Rundell and DeLisi to Planning Board

By Joe Robbat

This year’s election is important. We need to reelect Rick Rundell and Lynn DeLisi to the Planning Board because, like their current board colleagues, they are committed to town planning — the board’s most important contribution to the town, in my view.

Thoughtful, prescient land use recommendations to town meetings from Planning Boards dating to the 1930s caused many of us to move to Lincoln and raise children in this bucolic landscape. The Planning Board has led the way and now they are leading again as the town envisions and plans. It is only the Planning Board who has the responsibility and tools to do so.

Rick is a proven town leader, having chaired the board in the past, and brings to it important public and private-sector land use skills. He is an architect whose insights are helpful to the boards deliberative process. I know Rick and his wife Virginia (who was on the board of Friends of Modern Architecture). I only know Lynn from being in front of the board as an applicant. I found her gracious, welcoming, and helpful. They are both sensitive to applicants and believe in the benefits of living in community.

Please vote next Monday, June 15.

Joe Robbat
151 Old Concord Rd., Lincoln

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents 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: (Re)-elect Domnitz to the Planning Board

By Sara Mattes

I first met Bob Domnitz when I was the Board of Selectmen’s liaison to the Planning Board. I have watched Bob, over his previous tenure, navigate tough issues, come up with innovative solutions, engage with citizens with respect, and sometimes be on the receiving end of blasting critique. All the while, he maintained his droll sense of good humor.

First and foremost, Bob demonstrated over and over his sense of duty to the community as a whole, and the importance that all of us be part of critical decisions about directions for our town through the Town Meeting vote. Bob is “old school” that way — he trusted the messy business of democracy, encouraging debate and discussion, seeking full participation, and weighing all points before declaring his own.

[My role on the Planning Board] was only advisory. While I did not agree with him on all issues, I always respected his commitment to inclusiveness and open debate. He always brought all of us in to make the final decision

In addition to his role as collaborator in chief, I watched him navigate the tricky world of cell towers. His legal and technical expertise was critical for us to bring cell coverage to the town while making every effort to have as little deleterious impact on abutters, and where possible, bring revenues into the town. This was not easy. With the increased use of cell phones, demand for coverage increased, but so did resistance to having a tower looming from a neighbor’s yard.

The town faces many planning challenges ahead, not the least of which is the effort to revitalize South Lincoln and ensure the economic viability of our small retail district. Bob has demonstrated his commitment to bring all stakeholders, especially abutters, to the table, and giving them a voice and a vote. Past practice is proof that he believes that when making major changes to the town, the role of the Planning Board is to bring forward options and create a place to openly and freely debate the pros and cons of each path… and then, let the town decide.

That is why Bob Domnitz has my vote for Planning Board in this election.

Sara Mattes
71 Conant Rd., Lincoln

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents 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.

South Lincoln planning group to be downsized

A July 2019 overview of some of SLPIC’s completed and proposed improvements to the Lincoln Station area (click image to enlarge).

The South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee will be restructured into a smaller group and will shelve its South Lincoln rezoning proposal, at least for now

SLPIC was created in late 2016 as part of an effort to revitalize the area around the MBTA station and the Lincoln mall by enabling more business development and moderately priced housing while also encouraging pedestrian traffic and train ridership. Its subcommittees fostered projects to create a “pocket park” next and wayfinding signs, draw up a list of improvements for the MBTA station, and study the possibility of relocating the Department of Public Works to a site next to the transfer station to free up land on Lewis Street for other uses — an idea that met with protests from North Lincoln residents.

Last year, SLPIC unveiled a sweeping proposal to rezone parcels of land in South Lincoln to encourage mixed-use development with denser housing that what’s now allowed. It would also have streamlined the permitting process so that some projects could be approved by the Planning Board rather than having to go to Town Meeting. But many residents at two public forums, especially one in February 2020, were not receptive to the idea.

The committee also suffered from being simultaneously too large and too small, Planning Board members said at a May 26 meeting. It was large enough that it sometimes had trouble achieving a quorum for meetings, yet it did not include residents of the areas that would be affected, particularly the condo developments on Ridge Road.

“There was concern that opening that area up to more concentrated redevelopment might actually undercut some of the only middle-range housing in Lincoln,” Planning Board member and SLPIC co-chair Gary Taylor said.

The feedback the board received indicated that “it’s time for a bit of a rethink on how to approach this [and] find a middle ground between getting something done and letting the Planning Board loose to overdevelop the area,” Taylor added. However, because of the economic circumstances of South Lincoln businesses and the town as a whole, “we can’t really sit back and do nothing,” he added. “The problem is getting everyone to yes.”

Board members also recognized that SLIPC’s successor needs to gather more public input as it forms its proposals. “We need to get to a point where that group is meeting with the public and interested parties on some pretty regular, well publicized and well understood cadence,” chair Margaret Olson said.

“It was almost an economic development committee,” SLPIC co-chair Lynn DeLisi said. “It’s time for a change.”

The original plan was to have a vote on the rezoning proposal at a Special Town Meeting in the fall. Now the Planning Board will come up with a charge for the new group and discuss it with the Board of Selectmen before voting on a formal move. Olson proposed a smaller committee consisting of two members from the Planning Board, one from the Board of Selectmen and one from the Housing Commission.

“I am from the bottom of my heart grateful for listening to us in South Lincoln,” resident Jessica Packineau told the board. Packineau was one of the organizers of United Residents for Responsible Redevelopment, a neighborhood coalition that took issue with the rezoning proposal at the February forum.

“You all are going in the right direction,” Greenridge Lane resident June Matthews said. “All I ask for is representation of the constituents in the area.”

My Turn: DeLisi makes her case for reelection to Planning Board

(Editor’s note: DeLisi is one of three residents running for two seats on the Planning Board. The Lincoln Squirrel published statements by all three candidates in March and new statements from Rick Rundell and Bob Domnitz earlier this week. There will be an online forum for the candidates on June 11.)

Dear neighbors,

I am once again reaching out to you to ask for your vote in the upcoming Lincoln election. The fact that a seat on the Planning Board is an elected one is significant. This means that you have a choice to decide who represents you.

My background and training are not as important as what I believe in and whether I will stand up and represent what you believe in. Here is what I am for:

  • Responsible planning by collaboration with neighborhoods
  • Sensitivity to the feelings of abutters, the most affected by change
  • Keeping a DPW Site out of North Lincoln
  • Keeping the South Lincoln commercial district vibrant, but not dense with new housing
  • Keeping North Lincoln residents free from any more adversity
  • Regulations that preserve Lincoln’s unique rural and farm-friendly atmosphere
  • Preserving the historical significance of some of Lincoln’s neighborhoods and the designated historical districts
  • The highest quality education available to our children in safe facilities
  • A community center that serves our residents well
  • Safe and supportive facilities for senior residents
  • Keeping the availability of harmful substances away from our young generation
  • And… keeping Lincoln safe

While a member of the Planning Board, I actively participated in:

  • Several controversial decisions that affected the wellbeing of residents and their neighborhoods, such as whether or not marijuana establishments should be in Lincoln
  • Changing and simplifying some of the complicated process that new homeowners find in dealing with the Planning Board
  • The change of planning directors not long after I began (and drove that process)

I immediately understood the issues raised by McLean Hospital in setting up a residential home in Lincoln and misnaming therapy “education.” And I understood very clearly from my own research studies the effects marijuana establishments would have on our town. I spoke up and was active on all these issues and more. Most importantly, I listened to and consistently was sensitive to the concerns of abutters about change.

Although you may say, “Why does a psychiatrist/neuroscientist who bridges gaps between research and the clinic think she knows enough to be on a town Planning Board?” However, my seven years on the Planning Board have taught me a range of planning and architectural principles, adding up to more years than I actually spent in medical school. Scientific methods need to be applied more in our decisions than would be imagined. My background and experience have certainly helped my decision-making on the Planning Board.

One last word, with specific regard to the South Lincoln Planning and Implementation Committee: I was not happy with the way it was running from almost its beginning, and was the first to advocate that it be radically revised or abolished. It was only last week that other members of the Planning Board all agreed to change it. However, I still am advocating for a member of the committee of five to be someone who represents the residents most affected.

I welcome comments, suggestions, and concerns anytime. You can email me at DeLisi76@aol.com or call me at 516-528-5366.

Sincerely,

Lynn E DeLisi
125 South Great Rd.

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents 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: Feinberg endorses Domnitz for Planning Board

Dear Lincolnites,

It’s been a while since you heard from me. Some of you may remember me as the guy who wrote that weekly column in the Lincoln Journal about life and politics in Lincoln. Well, I’m ba-ack! At least for this one time, to wholeheartedly endorse Bob Domnitz for the Planning Board.

Bob is running for re-election because of his concern about the Planning Board’s current efforts to usurp Town Meeting’s role in approving significant development projects within the town. The Planning Board would like to revise the Zoning Bylaw so it alone would become the final arbiter on such projects, rather than Town Meeting.

Lincoln has an almost 300-year time-honored tradition and history of the Town Meeting form of government. Now is not the time to strip Town Meeting of its authority and weaken it. Join me in electing Bob Domnitz to the Planning Board.

Sincerely,

Neil Feinberg
104 Concord Rd., Lincoln

”My Turn” is a forum for Lincoln residents 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.

Planning Board candidate forum on June 11

Lincoln resident Sharon Antia will host a forum on Zoom with the three Planning Board candidates running for two openings in the June 15 election on Thursday, June 11 at 7 p.m.

If you have a question you’d like to ask one or more of the candidates, please email it to sharon.antia@gmail.com and she will compile and ask as many questions as possible. Alternatively, on the evening of the forum, we will accept questions via the chat function in Zoom as time allows. Questions that have already been suggested include:

  • How will planning in Lincoln be influenced by the new world order? How will Lincoln’s relationship with Massachusetts, the nation at large, and the world influence any planning decisions? Do current events suggest we have any responsibility to think about the world at large when we think about planning in Lincoln?
  • How will the town support our local restaurants through this pandemic?
  • Is there anything the Planning Board can do to support social distancing and community building? 
  • What about housing, the transfer station, the DPW, and South and North Lincoln? What is the Planning Board’s role, and how should they collaborate with other boards and commissions?
  • And what about the school? Some people are worried that the refurbished building may be obsolete in a few years, or are wondering if we should reconsider the tax burden on residents What, if anything, can or should the Planning Board do to review the current school plans and potentially suggest alternatives?

Link to join the candidate’s forum:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86813510489?pwd=akR2WVZKWUY2djE3OFAyTlBCaTExZz09

  • Meeting ID: 868 1351 0489
  • Password: 310709

Click here to learn about early voting and voting by absentee ballot, and to obtain forms for either option. You can also vote in person on June 15 from 12–4 p.m. at Town Hall.

More information: