The Lincoln Squirrel

News, features and photos from Lincoln, Mass.

letters to the editor

Letter to the editor: restrict use of leaf blowers

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Editor’s note: San Antonio read the following statement at the Leaf Blower Study Committee25 public forum on February 25. Click here to see links to previous coverage of this issue in the Lincoln Squirrel.

To the editor:

When I moved to Lincoln in 1991, I was positively elated to find such a special place. I grew up in Lawrence, Mass., and had lived in Boston, New York and then Los Angeles before returning to the East Coast. Feeling at that point quite starved for clean, safe space away from the pace of modern city life, my hope—no, my mission—was to find a place as uniquely beautiful as Lincoln with its inviting open fields, its intricate network of trails through the woods, and what in the beginning was relative peace and quiet.

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Letter to the editor: lighting regulation objection

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Editor’s note: This letter is in response to a February 23 letter from Planning Board member Margaret Olson on a proposed Town Meeting warrant article on outdoor lighting.

To the editor:

Article 44 will make every outdoor light in town nonconforming, meaning that if your beautiful Colonial-style porch or pole fixture that projects light up or to the side is damaged, you cannot replace it with another Colonial-style light. Nor will this article halt the red glow of Waltham and Boston that we see to the east at night, nor the glow of Worcester that we see to the west.

How will this be enforced? Will the police come to your door and order you to turn off your outdoor lights? Will we be required to install blackout shades to prevent interior light from leaking into the night sky?

Fossil fuel. Leaf blowers. Now this. Must Lincoln solve all the world’s problems?

Sincerely,

Michael Coppock
214 Aspen Circle

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 Letters containing personal attacks, errors of fact or other inappropriate material will not be published.

Letter to the editor: proposed changes to outdoor lighting rules

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Editor’s note: This letter concerns one of the warrant articles to be voted on at Lincoln’s Annual Town Meeting on March 28. A preliminary list of warrant articles can be found on this Town of Lincoln webpage. The Board of Selectmen is scheduled to sign the warrant on February 25.

To the editor:

The Planning Board has long considered issues of exterior lighting and light pollution, primarily through the site plan review process. Although the widespread availability and affordability of energy-efficient LED and compact fluorescent lighting benefits the global environment, these new technologies may also be potentially detrimental to our immediate environment here in Lincoln. The Planning Board is proposing changes to the Lighting Section of the Zoning Bylaw to insure that we preserve the rural character and sensitivity to conservation values that are Lincoln’s tradition, while still allowing for illumination that maintains or improves safety and energy efficiency. Please note that our proposal only regulates newly installed lighting. Existing lighting is grandfathered.

If you look up into the sky on a moonless night, you will see thousands and thousands of stars, stars that have inspired wonder and beauty through the millennia of human history—or you would see thousands of stars if they were not drowned out by light pollution. It is not only our ability to see the night sky that is lost with excess outdoor lighting. Insects, nocturnal animals and migrating birds are all confused or disoriented by artificial light. The emergence of LEDs and their blue-rich white outdoor lighting has aggravated these issues. Blue-rich white light mimics the spectrum of daylight disrupting circadian rhythms in both people and animals.

The eye has limited ability to rapidly adjust between one lighting level and another, and the adjustment period becomes even longer as we age. As we move from the interior to the exterior after dark we need light for safety that is minimally disruptive to the environment and wildlife that Lincoln has spent so much time and treasure protecting.

The proposed zoning changes apply only to newly installed light fixtures and are summarized below:

  • All exterior light fixtures must be fully shielded so they neither project nor leak light upwards towards the sky.
  • All lights shall have Color Corrected Temperature (CCT) of 3000K or below. The CCT describes the color of the light. A CCT of 3000K or below is a “warm white” light, typical of traditional incandescent bulbs. The CCT is typically specified on the package for LED and compact fluorescent bulbs.
  • Each fixture shall be limited to a maximum of 900 lumens, comparable to the output of a traditional 60-watt incandescent bulb. Lumens are a measure of the intensity of light output. A consistent level of lighting with multiple fixtures at a lower intensity is more effective for human vision and creates less light pollution.

We hope you will support Article 44 at Town Meeting and welcome your input.

Sincerely,

Margaret Olson for the Lincoln Planning Board

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

Letter to the editor: thanks from Domestic Violence Roundtable

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To the editor:

On behalf of the Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable and the families living in area domestic violence shelters and transitional housing programs who received your generous donations, I would like to thank everyone who helped make their Valentine’s Day a little brighter. Valentine bags were delivered to clients of REACH Beyond Domestic Violence, The Second Step and Voices Against Violence. This is one of the many projects organized by the Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable as a reminder to families who have suffered abuse that the community cares about them and wishes them well on their journey to safety. It is a small gesture on our part, but it has a big impact on them.

The Roundtable would especially like to thank Sudbury Extended Day pre-K students for once again decorating the Valentine bags. The children’s decorations add a special touch to the gift bags. Also, thank you to the Lincoln Council on Aging and Marlborough Savings Bank of Sudbury. We also appreciate the contributions of the League of Women Voters of Sudbury and the parents and staff of Sudbury Extended Day as well as the anonymous donations left by caring members of the community. This is indeed a community effort.

Collecting items for the Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable are (left to right) Karen Cohen, Marilyn Ellsworth, Isabel Rivera, Laura Van Zandt, Joan Gaumnitz and Diane Seligman.

Valentine’s Day bags assembled by Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable members Karen Cohen, Marilyn Ellsworth, Isabel Rivera, Laura Van Zandt, Joan Gaumnitz and Diane Seligman.

Everyone can make a difference. If you were unable to help with the Valentine Collection, but would like to support the Roundtable’s community projects, please watch for news about our upcoming Shower for Shelters that will take place in May. This drive benefits families transitioning from shelter to new homes.

The Sudbury-Wayland-Lincoln Domestic Violence Roundtable is a community-based nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting safe and healthy relationships, raising public awareness about abusive and controlling behaviors whether exhibited through bullying, teen dating violence, domestic violence, or elder abuse, and ending relationship violence in all its forms. If you share our determination to make our communities safer, please join us at our meetings. The group meets the second Tuesday of each month from September to May at 3 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room of the Wayland Public Safety Building at the intersection of Routes 20 and 27 in Wayland Center. The meetings are free and open to the public. More information about the Roundtable and its activities and about domestic violence can be found at www.domesticviolenceroundtable.org.

Sincerely,

Diane Seligman, Sudbury
Valentine Outreach Committee Chair

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

Letter to the editor: Town Meeting question on “We the People Act”

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To the editor:

Last week (Feb. 6, 2015) marked the 227th anniversary of the ratification of the U.S. Constitution by “Convention of the delegates of the People of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, February 6th 1788.” Coincidentally, Massachusetts legislators took a big step toward restoring a genuine democracy in the United States by introducing the We the People Act (HD 1988, An Act for a U.S. Constitutional Amendment and Amendments Convention). The bill, introduced by state Sen. Jamie Eldridge (D-Acton) and state Rep. Cory Atkins (D-Concord), has 62 cosponsors in the House and 19 in the Senate.

Lincoln’s Sen. Michael Barrett and Rep. Thomas Stanley have joined as cosponsors in endorsing this important bill. If the measure passes, Massachusetts will become the fourth state to call for a convention, after California, Illinois and Vermont.

The legislation calls on Congress “to propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution affirming that a) rights protected by the Constitution of the United States are the rights of natural persons, i.e. human individuals only, and that b) Congress and the states shall place limits on political contributions and expenditures…”

Under the measure, if Congress fails to act within six months of the bill’s passage, the Massachusetts legislature will join with other states under Article V of the Constitution to petition Congress to call a convention to propose amendments to the Constitution. This will proceed when two-thirds of the states have applied for a convention.

A resolution will also appear on Lincoln’s Town Meeting agenda in March to join with other cities and towns across the Commonwealth to endorse this bipartisan bill. Across the political, social and economic spectrum, Massachusetts voters have said they want a democracy amendment to the U.S. Constitution. For instance, in a national poll conducted by the Washington Post in 2010, 85 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of Republicans and 81 percent of independents said they opposed the Citizens United decision. Sixty-six percent of small businesses believe that decision is bad for business, according to the American Sustainable Business Council.

Sponsors, cosponsors, and citizens alike agree with Sen. Eldridge that “when corporate dollars flood elections, people’s voices are not only drowned out, but the policies and principles that keep families economically secure begin to erode. It is clear that the rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution are for people, and not corporate special interests.” He says further that “big corporate money poses an immediate threat to our democracy. The integrity of our political system is at stake. This bill sends a strong message that our democracy isn’t for sale.”

Sincerely,

Gary Davis
20R Indian Camp Lane
Chair, Lincoln Democratic Town Committee

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

Letter to the editor: another former Lincolnite on the gas pipeline

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To the editor:

I wanted to write to clarify a few of the points made in Jean Palmer’s Jan. 23 letter to the editor regarding gas pipelines in the state. There is actually no natural gas exported by ships out of Massachusetts or the Northeast. The one active LNG terminal in Massachusetts (in Everett) is actually to import natural gas, and supplies about 20 percent of New England’s natural gas. Thus, any natural gas pipelines from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts are to supply the region’s demand and could reduce the need for imports. There is currently only one facility in Louisiana that is exporting LNG by ship; the rest of natural gas exports occur via pipeline to Canada and Mexico.

Sincerely,

Marian Swain
Berkeley, CA (143 S. Great Rd. from 1990-2012)
marianswain@gmail.com

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

Letter to the editor: Kinder Morgan in Colorado

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To the editor:

Peggy Flint, a childhood Lincoln friend whose family is still in Lincoln, just forwarded the “Letter to the editor: gas pipeline concerns” [Lincoln Squirrel, Jan. 23, 2015]. A granddaughter of George Grosvenor Tarbell (1886–1968), I grew up in Lincoln from 1941 to 1958. Peggy Flint and I rode our horses on “the pipeline,” not knowing or caring at the time that it was part of Kinder Morgan’s operations.

Now I’m living in southwest Colorado—Montezuma County, atop the McElmo Dome, which contains the greatest concentration of CO2 in the world (according to Kinder Morgan). For the last 15 years, life in this agricultural area, which also has the highest concentration of ancestral Pueblan archaeological sites in the U.S. (Canyons of the Ancients National Monument), has been very pleasant. Most of the land is publicly owned and managed by the BLM [Bureau of Land Management], and much of the remaining private land has had the mineral rights sold off. To a relatively minor extent, oil, natural gas, uranium, and CO2 exploration and extraction have been going on for decades. But in the last two years, Kinder Morgan [KM] has been conducting subsurface studies to determine optimal locations at which to drill for CO2. There are now half a dozen CO2 wells within a couple of miles of my little house, and, according to whomever one listens to, plans for another two dozen more or less, in the good agricultural fields around me. The CO2 is piped to Texas, where it is injected into old oil wells, in order to extract more oil.

I have asked KM personnel several times why atmospheric CO2 cannot be captured rather than extracting more from below ground. The answer is, as one would expect, “too expensive.” A few years ago when fracking issues first presented in and threatened our community, I asked a KM official about responsible disposal of used (produced) fracking fluids. He told me the technology is available to inject and extract fracking fluids at the drilling site, then recycle it by means of a closed system moveable device/machine, which can travel from well to well. This technology, I was told, is “too expensive,” so open-air settling ponds are the preferred (cheapest) disposal method for used fracking fluids. KM injects their used fracking fluid into deep drilled wells (disposal wells)—probably less worse than settling ponds. They claim it doesn’t affect aquifers and potable water supplies…

My experience with KM until recently has been that they have more respect for the environment, archaeology, agriculture and other aspects of life than other extraction and mining companies. That said, it seems to me that the entirety of the extraction and mining industries, including the transportation of their products, needs ongoing examination, reasoned public input and well-considered regulation. Pipelines themselves aren’t the problem, but rather, extensions of the primary problems.

At least there are new beginnings—people beginning to recognize some of the problems and becoming involved, hopefully toward better solutions.

Sincerely,

Nancy Tarbell Carman
Pleasant View, Colo.

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

Letters to the editor: differing opinions on “We the People” Act

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Editor’s note: The two letters below also appear as comments at the bottom of a January 8 letter that supported the “We the People” Act. We’re now posting them as separate letters for those who didn’t see the comments appended to that letter.

Jan. 26, 2015

To the editor:

The rebuttal letter from Mr. Michael R. Coppock of January 8 [see below], which was in reply to the letter of January 8 from Jean Palmer et al, says that the “We the People” amendment could deprive corporations of fundamental capabilities, some of which they need to operate effectively, and prohibit all political advertising and thereby wipe out most political speech. Of course those things could happen, just as Congress could decide to demolish the interstate highway system.

But the likelihood that any of these things would happen is zero. Most corporate rights and privileges that enable them to operate are incorporated in federal and state law which would not be overturned with this amendment. Mr. Coppock seems to imply that a “We the People” amendment would require these extreme and bizarre results. Whether intended or not, that implication is simply false.

What the amendment would do is return to us, as voters, the ability to make such decisions through our elected representatives as had been done since the country’s founding. The amendment will restore the meaning of parts of the Constitution to what any reader can see was their original intent now given them by the Supreme Court.

It is unfortunate that the only way to overturn harmful decisions by the Supreme Court—in this case, the fiction that corporations are people and money is equal to free speech—is by amending the Constitution, but that is the situation.

Sincerely,

Jean Palmer
Tower Road

Jan. 8, 2015

To the editor:

I read the letter of Jean Palmer et al regarding the proposed constitutional amendment to “to affirm, (1) that rights protected by the Constitution are the rights of humans only, not corporations, and (2) that Congress and the states may place limits on political contributions and spending.” The first proposal would deprive corporations of the right to jury trial, indictment by grand jury, compensation for taking of property, free speech, protection against double jeopardy, unreasonable searches and seizures, equal protection of the law, and due process of law. This would affect not merely Exxon Corporation, but also the ACLU. All corporations, for-profit and non-profit, would become outlaws.

The second proposal would permit Congress and the states to effectively prohibit advertising and publications on political issues by limiting expenditures on those topics to zero, or to amounts so small as to make publicity ineffectual. In other words, limitations on political spending would repeal the First Amendment right of free speech on “political” topics (and what topics are not “political” today, given the vast scope of government?), for how can we exercise that right if we cannot join with others to spend money to support, oppose, or influence the policies of the government? Again, this would limit not only Exxon, but also the ACLU. Is that what the proponents of the amendments want?

Sincerely,

Michael R. Coppock
214 Aspen Circle

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

Letter to the editor: gas leak on Bedford Road

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To the editor:

There is a gas pipeline leak under Bedford Road near First Parish. The smell of gas is a regular part of walking to church. The congregation has noticed this and talked about this for years. Each time it is discussed we remember the last time we called the gas company and nothing happened. Could this leak be coming from the large gas main the writer referred to in a recent letter?

Sincerely,

Lewis Lloyd
8 Moccasin Hill

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